


Book of Shadows

by Faerendipitous



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: No Romance, Other, Temporary Death, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 20:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 26
Words: 83,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7655887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faerendipitous/pseuds/Faerendipitous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People like her have been called many things. Hags, Crones, even Devil's Whores. But now, they were called Witches; skilled in Magic and the power of Will. She knows that this island is teeming with it, but she's yet to learn the unnerving truth behind the beings that lurk in the dark. With the help of a gentlemanly scientist and her Book of Shadow, she's determined to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Witching Hour

Her feet were nimble as they pounded the pavement, each step jolting through her frail form as she ran. Her breath came in ragged gasps that materialized before her in puffs of white vapor, only to be carried away by the wind as she fled. Her heart beat wildly against her ribs as she clutched the book to her chest, hidden by her shawls.

The blood roared loudly in her ears as she trudged through the snow, but not even that was enough to drown out the roar of the crowd in pursuit of her.

Her sisters had warned her. They’d told her not to be so obtuse, to value her life and her secrecy above all else, but she’d been a fool, and look what had happened!

Her legs and her lungs both burned, and she could hear them growing louder, closer. She felt like she was going to be sick, as the dim light of the evening began to fade. The sun set over the horizon, and gave way to the inky blackness of night. She thanked the Gods; escaping under the cover of night would be so much easier.

The darkness had always been their friend – a secrecy they couldn’t achieve in the stark light of day, that laid everything bare before them, from the tiny scars on their hands to the pouches around their necks and at their hips to the symbols and ancient letters scrawled across their belongings, embroidered in their clothes, drawn in the dirt behind their homes. The night had always been a kindly cover, one that provided them escape from all who wished to harm them. Nighttime was the Gods’ way of saying they were watching over her and her sister.

Everyone is afraid of the dark.

As human beings, we are programmed and conditioned to fear the unknown. The dread of what’s lurking beyond the light of our lanterns far outweighs our curiosity. It’s an age old instinct that stretches back farther than any of us could hope to combat.

It’s what keeps us alive.

Some of us have unlearned our deepest fears, waded into the unknown and grasped the strange beings they meet there firmly by the hand. They have learned to accept the eldritch forces of the world beyond the veil, the furthest reaches of our own reality.

They possess the power of belief, the infallible presence of will that drives their craft. They know that the forces will guide them, that their magic, the very lifeblood of the great beyond, is an incredible, untapped power in their hands. And so they dabble in that power, bend the universe to their will and undo the very fabric of reality if they so desire.

The power of their well-trained will is a force to be feared. Once they realize the extent of their power, that there is nothing stopping their magic so long as they believe so, then they possess power far greater than anything the mortal plane has seen. Throughout history, these rewriters of reality have been heralded and hunted, revered and resented, hailed gods and prophets and agents of the Devil himself. They’ve been the keys to the success of nations, the fall of civilizations, healers and leaders and consultants and teachers. They were hunted and slaughtered by the thousands, sisters and mothers and daughters taken from their homes and tried against an unfair court.

In more recent years, they’ve been called many things.

Hags, Crones, even Devil’s Whores.

But now, they were called Witches.

Quietly, she pressed her back against the cold face of a building, feeling the clammy brick and mortar send a shiver up her spine as she pulled her hood back, her thin fingers clutching desperately to her Book of Shadows. She’d had to leave everything behind when they’d come for her, but this was the one thing she’d managed to take with her – the one thing she needed. Her Book of Shadows was invaluable, and so long as she had this, she had the power of the pantheon behind her, with all the ancient knowledge she’d been entrusted with by her sisters since her indoctrination so long ago.

She took a moment to catch her breath, feeling the chill of the sea breeze spilling in from the harbor.

If they caught her, she was almost certainly a dead woman. There was the ever slim chance that she might make it out alive, but if the slaughter of her sisters was any indication, it was far more likely she could jump headlong into the bay and survive.

If they caught her, they would soon catch her sisters. She had no doubt that they were already taking precautions, hiding themselves away from the public eye and doing their best to keep their silence while she was out here, having paid the price for letting her most sacred secrets slip. She had grown up with these people, her friends and neighbors. She’d never expected them to be so quick to want to hoist her to the gallows.

She peered around the corner, pulling her hood back over her dark hair and clutching her book to her chest as if it were a lifeline, the last safety in the world. For her, it certainly was. It was the last thing she owned in this world, now that she’d been driven from her home. She’d watched it go up in flames; no doubt they’d hoped to trap her inside.

Her footsteps echoed in her ears, far too loud for her liking as she slowly made her way down the pier. Each step was met with a wet click of her heel against the puddled boardwalk, and each pace step sent a jolt through her, expecting at any moment for those hunter her to hear the telltale sign of her escape and charge after her.

She tried her best to remain calm and collected as she moved down the pier, her eyes locked firmly on the little boat just beyond the last bracket at the edge of the dock.

She wasn’t a thief. She wasn’t a criminal! But she certainly wasn’t going to stick around and let those men catch her and drag her back to town like escaped cattle being brought to a slaughter.

Her breath came in nervous little puffs before her as shaking, cold fingers tried to pry apart the knots that held the little boat tethered to the dock. She didn’t know where she would go, or how she would get there, but she was confident that so long as she had her book and a means of escape, that she would find her way. She liked to think that she was an innovative individual, if nothing else. She’d figure it out. 

She glanced over her shoulder in a cold fear – she could hear chatter carried on the wind. They were nearing!

Her heart lurched and she tried to pry the wet rope apart, her terrified fingers doing little in the way of helping as they kept slipping against the dense rope.

“Say, miss. You look like you could use some help.”

She looked up, the sound coming from the darkened waters between the brackets of the dock. If she squinted, she could just make out the form of a tall man in a boat. How long had he been there? The sudden appearance of the form, not having notice him before, was a little startling to her, but she couldn’t waste time worrying about her silly nerves.

“Yes!” she gasped, hearing the men grow louder as they stepped foot onto the pier. “Please!”

There was a shout, her darkened, cloaked form spotted in the lantern light of the dock. She looked back, spying three of the men rushing towards her.

The man below showed little concern. “Jump in then! I’ll take you where you need to go.” He offered, and she suddenly felt a massive weight lift from her shoulders as, without a second thought, Winifred Hughes jumped.

Her feet left the dock and she seemed to hang in the air for a moment as the three men rushed towards her, armed with guns and rope and a crucifix as they tried to stop her. Several gunshots went off in the still of the night, but she was too far gone by the time they flew by.

She plummeted, clutching her book, bracing herself for impact with the tiny boat. As she fell, she could swear she saw a brief flash of something – a wicked grin in the lamplight – but before it had even registered with her, she was sinking down, swallowed whole by the form of the boat below her. The moment she hit it, it shifted and changed, fluid like the sea water as it closed in around her. All was dark, and as the three men came scrambling to the edge of the dock, poised to shoot and ready to kill, they were surprised and confused to find the waters below empty, if perhaps a bit choppy.


	2. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

Winifred was not sure about a lot in that moment, but the one thing she did know was that she had a headache.

It was one of those headaches that spread down the back of her head, settling in her neck and shoulders where it caused more pain than the actual pressure in her skull. She groaned, picking her aching head up and squinting against harsh sunlight. She was laying prone in the dirt, her tattered cloak flipped halfway up over her head and her book still clutched firmly in her hands, her grip on the sullied cover like a vice. She didn’t know what had happened, but there was no way on Earth she was letting go of her book. It was the only thing she was certain about right now – her book was an anchor of sorts. So long as she had it, she felt prepared, able to tackle anything life could throw at her.

Including this.

Whatever this was.

She managed to her knees, then to a wobbly stand, surveying her surroundings. Well, this certainly wasn’t the shipyard. That was the last thing she remembered – creeping through the dark of night in the shipyard, trying to escape.

A wave of dread and sadness washed over her. It was all gone, all destroyed. Her entire life back home had gone up in flames – and had she stayed any longer, so would’ve she.

She gathered her strength and reminded herself that it didn’t matter. She wasn’t there anymore, and the best she could do now was start over. She had her Book of Shadows, and she had the Gods watching over her. She had all she needed.

Winifred took one brave step onwards.

She promptly toppled over.

Along with the dull ache in her head came a new pain in her ankle, one that was screaming and demanding attention.

Off to a great start in her new life.

The young witch sat for a moment, pulling herself to a more respectable position as she evaluated her injury. It was just a sprain, nothing she couldn’t take care of.

She tore a strip of fabric from her cloak, and along with some loose twigs, a poor makeshift splint was formed. She wrapped it tightly around her ankle, hoping it kept long enough for her to find a way to diminish the pain.

It wasn’t anything debilitating; she was grateful that, with care and precision, she could still walk, but the sharp twinge that shot up her leg with every step was certainly cumbersome.

She limped through the peculiar terrain, leafing through the pages of her Book of Shadows. It was full of ancient knowledge, spells and rituals. It was her lifeline now. It was all she had, apart from the tattered cloak and the clothes on her back. It was all she needed, with every spell she’d ever cast in the coven and on her own. She knew there had to be a spell for pain management here somewhere. If she could just find the right ingredients…

Chickweed, yarrow, rocks for grinding. Ash and mud to bind.

She would need to start a fire, to burn the twigs to dust to add to her spell. To start a fire, she would need wood – something more substantial than the leaf litter and twig debris she’d picked up.

As she walked, she tried to piece things together. She remembered the night before, the fear and ripping panic that struck through her, the lick of flames and the mad rush that sent her flying through the night, searching for safety or an escape.

She remembered the cool breeze of the harbor, and the dark waves below the dock. She remembered the little rowboat and the heavy, impossible rope that tethered the boat to the dock. She hadn’t been able to move it, and the tall, mysterious man in the boat below, on the other side of the dock.

He’d offered her safe passage, hadn’t he? She remembered her feet leaving the secure, solid platform of the dock, and she plummeted into the water – she hit the boat, she remembered that much – but after that, everything went dark and her memories seemed to fail her. If she truly wanted to know, there was the possibility a quiet meditation might unlock the peculiar memories that persisted to elude her; but for now, she just wanted to focus on relieving the pain in her ankle. She was close, all she had to do was start a fire—

A fire!

Winifred looked up with delight. A thin plume of smoke was rising over the tops of the trees, wafting towards the dense clouds and getting lost among the hazy grey. Where there was smoke, there was fire – and where there was fire, there was eventually ash!

It didn’t seem too far off, thank the Gods. She was beginning to feel the dull ache of her ankle transform into a deep, stabbing pain. The splint would need readjusting, as she was fairly certain that the dry twigs she’s used as support had all but crumbled to dust by now.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking, but he knew it was entirely too long to be walking on a sprained ankle. She didn’t know much about her surroundings, aside from the usefulness of the environment, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to traverse or survive it if she didn’t take care of even her most minor injury.

She hobbled through the forest, occasionally taking a short rest against the trunk of a tree or on a particularly large rock, always keeping her eyes cast towards the sky, watching the plume of smoke rise and waft higher and higher with every passing moment. She wondered idly what could be on fire all the way out here. There didn’t seem to be any more smoke – and the smoke above her was pitifully thin. It couldn’t have been much of a forest fire. At most perhaps it affected two or three trees, or a particularly large cluster of bushes. It wasn’t the grandest fire to be had in the middle of a forest, but it would do for her purposes!

She pushed herself back to her feet, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk to support her weight. Even after the smoke had vanished from the cloudy skies, she kept on her path, heading in the direction of its origin. She was so close now she could smell it, quite literally, the smell of burning wood exceptionally distinct in this part of the forest.

Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to find a contained campfire. The set of the camp itself was bare bones, no more than a fire, a few piles of stuff, and a tattered sleeping roll that seemed to be made out of straw. Her nose wrinkled. It looked uncomfortable.

But the fire had just gone out; the embers were still warm. She feared that whoever or whatever had taken residency here would be back soon. Pulling the hood of her cloak up, she crouched over the camp fire, poking around in the cooling embers and scooping ash into the pockets of her apron. There wasn’t much to be had; whatever had been burning in here had been meager to begin with, and left so little behind. Still, all she needed was a handful, maybe two, and she’d have enough for her little spell.

She scooped with delicate fingers, muttering nothings under her breath as she worked, quickly overturning the remaining fuel, shifting rocks and crisped twigs to get to the ash beneath. The sun was warmer now, the high afternoon soon to be breaking into the cool of evening. Her head hurt a bit as she tried to make sense of it. Where had the day gone? Had she really spent so many hours following the smoke in the sky, wandering through the forest? She supposed she was quite a bit slower than usual considering her sprained ankle, but it couldn’t have really been that long, could it?

She never really got the chance to think on it: her train of thought was rudely interrupted by a sharp point digging into her back.

Her breath caught, and her fingers froze, dipped halfway into the soot of the dead fireplace.

“No sudden movements,” came a voice. Male. Adult. Rather vexed. “Kindly remove your hands from my camp fire and stand up.”

She did as he asked, raising her hands in surrender; he couldn’t help but notice the soot coating the slim hands. What had this hooded beast done to his fire?

Silently, the man ran a checklist in his head as the point of the spear. He had some wood, he had rocks, he had enough kindling to start a new fire in case the one this one had been tampered with or ruined. Did he have enough logs? He’d have to build another makeshift axe and gather some more logs for a new fire, he supposed.

Normally that wouldn’t have been so bad, but evening was falling fast, and soon night would fall.

That was rather unfortunate, wasn’t it?

“On your feet. Slowly!” he said, watching as the figure stood. A stray thought struck him that he did not, exactly, know what he was going to do now that something had showed up in his camp. It seemed docile enough – at the very least, it wasn’t trying to kill him yet, which is more than he could say for that overgrown goose that had wandered up here some days ago. But it was still more brazen than some of the other creatures on this island. Even the pig-men avoided his camp. Sure, they wandered close once in a while, but the moment they never passed the tall grasses that separated the little native village from his camp.

This thing, however, was far too small to be a pig villager.

Winifred climbed slowly to her feet, shifting so that she could keep her weight off of her ankle. In hindsight, she supposed walking uninvited into the camp was probably not her greatest idea, but the twinge in her ankle prevented her from doing much else.

The man watched as splotchy, sooty hands came up and pushed back on the hood of the cloak. For a split second, every grotesque possibility ran through his mind, contemplating what might be hidden under the hood. He’d seen some plainly bizarre and unsettling creatures here already. Perhaps it was a faceless beast! Or a creature with horns instead of ears! Maybe it was hiding scales and gills, like the Merm. Or maybe it was-

Oh.

A ponytail.

Well. That was rather anticlimactic.

“You’re not a creature at all!” He said, perplexed as the point of the spear dropped from between her shoulder blades.

“I would certainly hope not!” Came the reply, in perfect, feminine English. It was an unexpected relief to hear someone speak proper English. Someone who didn’t grunt out crudely formed phrases or whisper menacingly from the shadows. He bounced on the balls of his feet for a moment, wholly intrigued and excited to engage in a real conversation as the girl turned around.

She seemed to be a bit younger than him, and perhaps not quite as weather worn. How long had she been out here?

He stood straight, one hand behind his back and the other extended for her. “Wilson P. Higgsbury, ma'am! You’ll have to pardon my rude behavior, if I’d have known you were a lady…”

She was taken aback by his sudden change of demeanor, looking up at him with wide eyes for a moment as she tried to sum him up. Hand outstretched, he seemed rather harmless, and after a moment of hesitation, he clasped her small hand in his. “Winifred Hughes…” She offered in return, shaking his hand delicately. She sounded uncertain, and Wilson could really only assume it was due to the fact that he’d held her at spear point before introducing himself.

Her hand left his, and he looked down at his palm, now stained black with soot. “Forgive my curiosity, miss Winnie–”

“–Winifred–”

“–but why, exactly, where you digging through my camp fire?” He asked, doing his best to wipe the soot off without getting it on his waistcoat. He might not have been impeccably presented, but he could still do his best to not look a wreck. Especially now that he seemed to have company!

She grimaced, a knot of nervousness forming in her chest. Mr. Higgsbury seemed kindly enough - but then again so had her friends and neighbors. She wasn’t entirely confident, now, that being entirely truthful was the best idea. She cleared her throat, standing a little straighter. “I need ash,” she said. “I… I hurt my ankle…” She didn’t offer any explanation on how the two were related. Personally, she hoped it was enough information for him.

But he looked her over, and could see the way she balanced her weight on one leg like the world’s most dismal flamingo.

“Oh, goodness…” He said. He was no doctor of the medical sciences himself, but it didn’t take a degree to reason that she’d turned her ankle. “No, no, that won’t do out here, you need to be able to walk properly!” He thought for a moment. “I’ve got just the thing!”

Winifred watched as he rummaged through a chest he’d tucked back underneath the branches of a nearby bush. It seemed to do the trick - she hadn’t even noticed it was there. She watched curiously as he pulled some sort of pale pink goop from the bottom of the chest. “Here you are” He said, sitting her down on a nearby log and handing her the gunk. “One batch of salve, already made. Get that on your ankle and you’ll be feeling better in no time.” He nodded smartly.

She was still in a bit of a daze as she accepted his kind gifts. She did away with the ruined splint and spread the foul-smelling gunk on her ankle before wrapping it again. There was an odd tingle in her ankle, and a warm sensation that persisted, but the pain was gone by the time she managed back to her feet again. It was so peculiar, but she was glad to be able to walk properly again.

“Thank you, Mr. Higgsbury,” she said, delighted to find her gait smooth without the need to hobble and limp anymore.

“My pleasure, miss.” He said. “Can never be too prepared out here, hmm?” Though he wasn’t very sure she ascribed by the same philosophy. It seemed she was wildly unprepared - aside from the ash in her pockets, she didn’t seem to be carrying much with her- Oh!

Wilson stooped down, picking up the small, tattered looking book she’d laid by the fireside while she had been gathering ash. He gave the cover a curious glances before dusting it off a bit. “Is this your–”

She snatched it from his grasp before he could even finish his sentence. She was wide eyed and squirrely, clutching the tome to her chest and frowning slightly to give her the appearance of a particularly offended owl.

“–ah. I’ll take that as a yes.” He cleared his throat lightly, having recoiled from her grab.

She looked down at her book, cradling it as if it were a child rather than an old, musty looking book. After a moment, she seemed to decide it was still in one piece, and turned her gaze back towards Wilson.

“Where are we?” She asked, her voice flat and a bit quieter than she would have liked. She didn’t want to come off as lost or distressed, though she was plenty of both at that moment.

Wilson considered her question, one hand on her hip and one hand at his chin. “We’ll I’m not really certain. That’s something I’ve been trying to figure out myself since I got here, but I haven’t had much luck.” This was followed by a pause, and then a thoughtful, displeased hum. He seemed deep in thought for a moment, then looked down at his new guest with a sudden interest. “You’re welcome to stay the night. It’s not… safe, out there in the dark. Not without some sort of light.”

That certainly caught her attention; the way he spoke with grim experience, the tone of dread in his voice. It made her wonder what lurked out here at night.

She nodded once. “Yes, please. Thank you. You’ve been here for some time, I assume?” she asked. “I only just arrived. I’ve not got much of an idea how, though… it’s all a bit fuzzy.”

“Oh! You’re new, then? Well you got here same way as me, I’d wager.” Wilson said, rekindling the fire that Winifred had been digging through moments before.

She watched as he worked with skill, stoking the flames back to life in a matter of moments. Just how long had he been out here? If his haphazard appearance was anything to go by, she could certainly spare a guess. “And just how would that be, Mr. Higgsbury?” she asked, pulling her cloak closer around her shoulders as the night settled over the island, the darkness descending heavily all around them, save for the little circle of light cast by the fire.

He paused, looking up at her.

“Why, by the shadows, of course.”


	3. Old Habits Die Hard

Wilson didn’t sleep that night. Most nights, actually, he didn’t sleep. But tonight was particularly important because he knew he hadn’t slept at all, and yet when the sun rose and the darkness dissipated, Winnie was simply not there. The straw roll he’d offered to her last night had been vacated, leaving him to wonder exactly when she’d taken off. It couldn’t have been in the middle of the night. Had that been the case, the night creature surely would have attacked her the moment she stepped foot outside of the safety of the campfire’s glow and alerted him. That much he was certain of.

Which left him rather confused once the morning rolled around.

If he were honest, he’d rather hoped that Winnie would stay. It was a pleasant change from talking to rabbits and trees all the time. Imagine! Another real human being to talk to, to actually have someone he could rely on out here. Of course, he wouldn’t have done much relying on given that he didn’t actually know her all that well. For all he knew she could be a complete basket case. But the idea was nice in theory.

Once he’d put his curiosities about the girl aside for the morning, he started on his work. Check the traps, gather kindling, and harvest what he could, all before noon. Once the sun was too high for him to work properly, it was time to do science.

The original model science machine he’d built was still running just fine. The alchemy engine still had a few kinks to be smoothed out of the gear work, but Wilson was sure he’d be able to fix it as soon as he could actually find some gears. They were both wonderful, glorious, scientific machines!

And yet it didn’t surprise Wilson that he needed more. The two machines alone weren’t enough, but he simply didn’t have the materials to build a third, even more science-y machine to aid him in his extended camping trip from hell. He’d begun thinking up a new design, one that would last a long time, he was sure, that wouldn’t run into so many road blocks as the others had, but it required so much – more than he was entirely sure he could produce alone on this island.

It was times like this he missed his workshop. It had been a bit cramped, just the attic of his cottage back in the mountains – his old home, his old life – but it had been his, and it had been the birthplace of many incredible inventions and even more genius ideas. He missed it greatly, and he missed being able to do his science as he saw fit. He used to conduct experiments that ran along the cusp of all human knowledge, and now he was here, science-ing just to survive out here.

His stomach growled unhappily.

He grimaced and laid a hand over his middle hoping to quiet it. He hadn’t eaten much in the last few day. Last time he’d eaten had been the evening before last, and it hadn’t been much more than some stale bushmeat and a handful of seeds. He’d meant to find more provisions yesterday, but he’d had to spend the afternoon luring hounds away from the camp, and then in the evening Winnie had shown up… needless to say, the day had gotten a bit away from him.

Today, he would dedicate to finding food, he told himself, but he knew that it would be difficult to venture too far from his camp without food – and anything he would find on the way would have to be eaten just to give him enough strength to get back! Wilson had been out here a long time, and this wasn’t the first time he’d made such a mistake.

Unfortunately, he usually spent days trying to correct for it.

It was already mid-day. He figured he could venture a bit out from camp, maybe if he were lucky he’d find some seeds, maybe a rabbit or two out in the grassy plains just south of his camp. At the very least, it would quiet his hunger through the night. Provided he found anything, of course.

Hmm.

Well, he wouldn’t find anything just standing around! He gathered up his things – the spear he’d jabbed between Winnie’s shoulders, a rabbit trap that could probably use some repair, the backpack he’d made. All very bare-bones, but enough to get him going.

With that decision, he snuffed out the fire, and was on his way. 

Wilson’s stomach growled loudly, discontent and angry with him. It had turned out that the rabbit trap had needed a bit more than a little repair. One of the little beasts had managed to chew right through the side before he got to it. So not only did he have a striking lack of rabbit, but now he needed a new trap. He wasn’t sure he had enough materials to build a new one. Just more he needed to find and gather in the already short days.

He hummed, a displeased sort of noise as he wrapped an arm around his middle, ignoring the pains in his stomach.

He knew it wasn’t really her fault, but he couldn’t help but silently curse that Winnie had shown up last night. The most inopportune time to lose track of his work.

And now, night was so close to falling and he was ending another night on no more than a handful of seeds. They would have to do.

He sighed heavily as he sat himself down next to the fire. This certainly wasn’t the worst case scenario. He’d seen a lot worse. When he’d first found himself on this God forsaken island, he’d not known what to do or how to survive. He’d been rained on and caught fire all in the same night, and very nearly starved to death. This was just a mild inconvenience compared to some of the misfortunes he’d toughed through in the past.

Still. It would have been nice to have something a little more substantial than seeds.

What was that?

Wilson perked up, alert and wide eyed as he tried to scout the surrounding area in the dim evening light. There had been a rustling in the bushes, he was sure he’d heard it. Leaves and twigs shook and trembled nearby, the movement caught out of the corner of his eye. He leapt to his feet, grabbing up his spear with nervous hands. So close to night, he wouldn’t be able to lure the beasts away. His heart beat against his ribs, and he tried his best to steel himself for the impending fight.

The way he saw it, there were three outcomes:

There was the possibility that he would be able to scare off whatever was rustling around in the nearby bushes. They would part ways as unlikely friends and hopefully never meet again.

There was the slim chance, upon fighting this creature, that he would win in a battle to the death and with a little extra work, have meat by morning. A real, genuine breakfast for the first time in weeks.

He very much liked that idea.

Then of course there was possibility number three, in which the creature gets breakfast.

He swallowed thickly, and gripped the spear.

All at once, the thing came forth – a shock of black and wide, almost luminous eyes in the dim fire light.

“Put that down, you’re going to hurt someone with that thing!”

Wilson let out a wheeze of relief. Seemed Winnie hadn’t exactly disappeared as he’d thought she had. The tip of the spear dug into the earth as he slumped against it. “I didn’t think you were coming back.” He said. “I didn’t notice you sneak away this morning.”

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I’m very quiet.” She said, with an apologetic smile. Truth be told she fully meant to slip away without being noticed, but she felt it was best he didn’t know that.

“Where were you all day, then?”

Winifred moved closer to the fire, the two bottom corners of her apron pinched up to create a sort of carrier. She was smiling, her book tucked underneath her arm as she tipped her apron forward to show him what she’d brought in the light of the camp fire, just as the last of day time fled the sky.

“Haley’s Comet! Where did you find so many carrots? And what are these, berries?” he asked, examining her haul. “Are you sure they’re edible?”

“My sisters taught me a long time ago how to tell which are consumable,” she said smartly. “Since you were kind enough to let me pass the night, I thought I’d repay you!”

“That’s brilliant! Here—“ he said, rushing to the nearest chest and producing a large, flat rock. “Carrots are so pithy raw.”

She followed his lead, stuffing bits of carrot greens into her apron pockets, along with the stray flowers she’d gathered along with the food. He didn’t think to ask of the flowers. He supposed they made her feel a little bit better. It was such a nice, normal thing, to pick flowers. Made it easier to forget about the monsters and creatures that lurked on this bizarre, forgotten island.

The smell of cooking carrots and berries was a strong one that wafted around the camp as the pair cooked, and it only made Wilson’s stomach growl louder. It would have been rude of him to eat until the food was prepared and they could both enjoy a meal, but he certainly looked forward to eating something more substantial than a handful of seeds for the first time in a few days.

When everything was cooked, they divvied it up and stored the remainder away, the two sitting on opposite ends of the one lonesome campfire log, each with a flat rock in their lap to serve as a plate.

Wilson had never much cared for carrots, but he’d learned that anything could be delicious if you hadn’t eaten for three days. It was a bit messy and improper, eating the carrots and roasted berries with his fingers, but she didn’t seem to mind, and it wasn’t exactly like there were many other viable options. He made a mental note to put cutlery on his ‘to invent’ list.

“So!” he said, quickly swallowing a mouthful of berries. “I take it you haven’t been out here long. Where’d you come from, then?”

She stopped, a piece of carrot halfway to her mouth. She placed it back on the plate, looking over at him. He hadn’t been much of a talker while they’d cooked the spoils, and that was his opening line? “Uh…” she coughed lightly. “Small shipping town on the American East Coast. Nowhere important.” He hadn’t asked, and she certainly wasn’t going to offer up the fact that she’d been effectively run from her small shipping town on the American East Coast. She barely had her feet beneath her out here, and he’d turned that blasted spear on her twice already today. She wasn’t going to push her luck. “You?”

“Falmouth – New England area.” He said shortly. “Had a little cottage alone in the mountains. Small, but better than a bloody tent,” he nodded over to the sad structure, the canvas swaying gentle in the breeze.

She blinked. “You’re American? With an accent like that?”

“Parents’ fault. Emigrated from England not long before I was born, actually.” He hummed lightly.

“Do you miss them, much?”

Wilson didn’t even spare a glance. “No, not at all.” He said, his tone light and casual, as if they were discussing the weather. “Yourself?”

“I don’t have much to miss,” she sighed, popping another bit of carrot into her mouth. “Left home just before… this happened.”

“Shame. At least you’ve got that,” he said, nodding to the book that sat between them, just at her side.

She laid a hand on it, pulling it a little closer to her. She didn’t like that he seemed so curious about her book. It was full of spells and rituals and prayers to ancient gods. She didn’t want him nosing through it, finding out that she was a witch, and subsequently trying to use her as fuel for his camp fire.

“Ah. Yes, well. Very good.” He cleared his throat, going back to his carrots and berries. He was silent for a moment “You know, miss Winnie, I wouldn’t mind if you stuck around,” he said, looking over at her.

She huffed, indignantly as she turned to him. “It’s–” she shut her mouth quickly as he made his offer. She looked at the older man who she’d stumbled onto, who’d helped her fix up her ankle and offered her a fire to spend the night by, and who now was offering her a permanent camp. She didn’t answer him for a moment, instead reaching into the front of her blouse, much to Wilson’s embarrassment, and pulled forth a little glass pendulum on a chain. She held it before her and stared intently at it, not even daring to breathe as she watched the movement.

Widdershins.

Damn.

“—Yes,” she said, replacing the necklace and turning her attention to him. “I think that would be wonderful.”


	4. Doorway to Adventure

Wilson had never realized how useful having another person at the camp would be.

No longer was the day’s work so cumbersome, so utterly time consuming. They were able to split the work that needed done between them now, which left time and energy for other things. For Wilson, that meant science. He was still quite curiously stuck as far as his next great scientific machine, but he was actually able to tinker and create now with Winnie’s help around camp!

It was a benefit to both of them, of course. Not only did Wilson get to research and invent again – something he’d missed sorely – but more often than not, he would approach Winnie after a night of tinkering with some new gadget or another.

At first, it was all simple things. He’d made her a backpack, to help her carry her things as she foraged for food. She was much better at it than he was, telling which sprouting tufts of greenery were edible, or which hid carrots below the surface, but often times she would have to make two and three trips. Just the burden of carrying around that odd book set her back at least a whole trip. So he’d taken it upon himself to create a little carrier pack, woven from the tall grasses that grew around their camp in abundance. It was small and simple, but gave her enough room to stow away her book and a few other necessities for travel that he simply wouldn’t let her leave camp without. Things like water, an extra spear – despite her assurances that she wouldn’t know how to use it even if she needed to – and a torch, just in case she was too far from camp once night fell.

After a while, the things he made started growing more complex. A compass, to make her travels easier; an icebox, to keep their food stores from spoiling; between their efforts, the little bare-bones camp began to thrive.

Winifred, too, tried her hand at the craft. He was much better in the way of science and mechanics than she was, but she had her book, and though the things she made seemed odd and pointless to Wilson, she was proud of them and stored them away neatly. He helped her make her own chest to keep her things in, and soon it was full of items like a little reed flute and quick-working remedies made of honey and cloth.

He didn’t quite understand how she made such things. They certainly weren’t part of his research. Perhaps it was her book. It was only logical that she make such refined items with some set of instructions. He was terribly curious about her book; what could possibly be written in that old, mysterious tome? Yet, he never took her for a scientist. She was too flighty, too impulsive with her creations.

And she kept bringing the oddest things back to camp.

He watched her one afternoon as she emptied her apron pockets. Flower petals, greenery, rocks of all sorts – even bits of tentacles! Where on earth had she gotten those? Wilson had made it a point to stay as close to his camp as possible – after his first encounter with that terrible night creature, he wasn’t exactly keen on leaving his fire behind. It was a matter of survival out here. Winnie, apparently, had no such reservations. She sometimes disappeared for two or three days at a time, returning with spoils the likes of which Wilson had never considered useful in any capacity. Frog legs and rabbit horns, pond water, and birch leaves. She’d even come up to him with a small, glittering gem.

Winifred had held the small red gem in her hands.

She’d given it to Wilson, earlier, feigning wonder and handing it off to him to see his reaction. He’d humored her, but remained wholly unimpressed by the stone. She didn’t understand how he could be so flippant about something like this.

Though, she supposed he couldn’t exactly feel it.

There was something unsettling about this place, now that she held this stone. It was teeming with an energy she’d only ever felt in her casting circle. It was a magical energy that buzzed in her fingers and made her feel powerful, more than she had since she’d fled her home in the middle of the night.

Her fingers closed around the gem, and tucked it away in her blouse.

* * *

 

The sun was high, and Winifred stooped to pluck a daisy from the ground. She had a few already tucked carefully into her apron pockets, wanting to use them to charge a piece of gold she’d found to keep as a luck charm. Wilson had seemed particularly skittish during the nights, and while she couldn’t convince him to sleep, she figured this might do the trick. Even if she didn’t tell him it was genuine magic, it might improve his mood a bit.

She hummed lightly, wandering through the forest, periodically checking her compass to make sure she was still going in the right direction. She was grateful for Wilson’s tinkering – it made it so much easier to find her way back to the camp site with the compass.

She gathered bits of flowers and herbs, flipping through her book every so often, checking the ingredients and the plausibility of her spells. She wasn’t so sure how likely it was that she’d be able to pull off a full ritual – not when she needed things like sage and consecration oil just so get started, let alone the ingredients for the actual spell – but little spells, tonics and charms and satchels, she could still make with ease and discretion.

She knew Wilson was growing curious – he’d asked her more than once why she brought so many flowers to the campsite, if they weren’t to be used for fuel. He’d asked her why she felt the need to fill an entire chest with those peculiar red crystal shards she kept bringing back. She couldn’t very well tell him that it was because she felt something unusual about the gems, that she felt they had a great magic to them. She couldn’t tell him it was because they were powerful, somehow.

So she’d turned one into a necklace, and placed it about her neck and told him she thought they were pretty.

He seemed to buy it.

Honestly she wasn’t surprised. He was very one-minded, always with his nose in some project or another, tinkering away to invent the next great machine that would open up a whole new world of possibilities for them. He never considered that she was being anything but frank with him.

Personally, she was very grateful for it. Though he didn’t seem to be making much progress on that new machine. She often wondered what it would be. The two existing machines he’d build around the camp, long before she’d arrived, were already rather frightful things. A Science Machine and an Alchemy Engine, he’d called them, the pair helping him to catalogue and record all of his research on this blasted island, and store the instructions for the various inventions he produced.

He was remarkably talented, she’d noticed. Always working on something, always trying to improve the bleak conditions of the island through sheer willpower and intellect. She admired that greatly. Magic was the art of projecting your will and intentions into the universe, to bend reality to your commands and tap into the energy that was inherent in the intricate weavings of existence.

Wilson’s ways were very different. His will was much more physical, much more manual than hers. His will did not bend the universe, but created the tools to allow him to do so in lieu of magic. He called it science, but Winifred saw it as a unique skill all its own.

She highly doubted Wilson would be exactly like-minded on the subject from his perspective.

Winifred absently picked another flower, lifting it to smell the sweet scent—

She gagged, nearly dropping the flower in disgust. She looked down at it, finding the petals blackened and shriveled. It smelled horrid, the scent giving her a headache as she tossed it back to the ground. It landed limply a few feet away from her, and her gaze followed it.

The witch froze, her blood running cold as she looked up at the structure before her.

Staring down at her was a huge structure, one unlike anything she’d seen on the island before. It was massive, and unlike the evergreens and marble trees and lakes, it was clearly, unquestionably man-made. It towered over her, a mess of wood and metal, gears and wires that stuck out at odd angles from the machine. She lost her breath, a lump forming in her throat as it began to change and transform, her mere presence enough to activate the horrific contraption.

It leered down at her, a wicked grin as the machine expanded, the metal siding opening to reveal a deep black void. Things swirled within it, red wisps of something that whispered menacingly to her. The gem she wore around her neck warmed, her skin burning underneath it the only thing pulling her out of her shocked stupor. She hissed, ripping the stone from her neck as it simmered and buzzed with magic.

She took a step back, and watched as the strange door returned to a benign looking state, the magic concealed by the metal siding and the wicked, somehow familiar grin disappearing as if it had never been there to begin with. She feared for a moment, wondering if she’d perhaps imagine it, or if perhaps this whole bizarre experience was a result of the ghastly flower she’d picked. Perhaps it was poisonous. That would make sense of the whole ordeal, but still…

She suddenly decided that she had enough daisies.

With unsteady hands, Winifred pulled out the compass Wilson had given her and, turning away from the door again, made her way back to the camp.

* * *

 

“I can’t help but notice, Winnie, that you’ve been rather quiet this evening,” he mentioned offhandedly as she warmed herself by the fire. She was usually a very boisterous, lively person at this time of night, most usually chattering away over her chest of oddities, mixing the petals in water and combining her strange belongings in all sorts of ways as they entertained one another. “I don’t mean to pry, of course, but you came back earlier this evening white as a sheet. Which leads me to believe that something might have happened while you were out and about.”

She looked up at him, frowning slightly. “Winifred,” she offered, correcting him quietly.

“Ah - Wilson,” he countered. “Now this is a fairly large island, I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I’ve been here quite a while and I may be able to quiet whatever worries are on your mind about what you stumbled across out there.”

She sat at the log, stoking the flames as the dry wood he’d brought back earlier in the day kindled nicely. An uncomfortable feeling was lodged somewhere deep in her chest as she poked at the fire. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something about that door out in the middle of the woods was just overflowing with bad energy. It left her feeling anxious and disquieted, and if there was one thing she learned as a witch, it was that your instincts were usually right. She took a deep breath, lips pressed tight.

“I saw something out there.”

“I gathered.”

“No, it - it wasn’t like anything I’ve seen on the island before. It looked - it looked like someone had built it.”

“Well, Winnie, everything on this island I’ve built is right here. Of course, there are the homes in the pig villages, but something tells me they wouldn’t have you that spooked. Care to describe it? I’m fairly well versed in mechanics myself, being a scientist and an inventor of sorts, as you may have noticed,” he said, unable to keep the familiar pride from his tone. He cleared his throat. “You, ah- you go on.”

She fiddled with the hem of her apron, frowning into the fire as she thought.

“It was… a door.” she said. “I think. It was a tall contraption, about as tall as the pines, made of metal and wood and wire, and it had a great circular piece on top. When I moved too close, it… transformed, without me even touching it! And when it changed, Wilson, I could have sworn it looked like… like…”

“Maxwell,” he breathed.

“I beg your pardon?”

Wilson looked at her, a haunted quality to his features that were only worsened by the glow cast by the fire light. It made him look eerie, wide eyed and pale, and Winifred shrank a bit under his startled gaze.

The sky began to turn a dust blue-grey as the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon, chasing away the worst of the night and dispelling the shadows.

“Winnie,” he said, “you have to take me to this door.”


	5. A Cold Reception

He was insistent; it was absolutely maddening. Winifred couldn’t recall him ever being quite this exuberant before. The moment it truly hit him, he began preparing for the journey to the mysterious spot in the middle of nowhere where she’d found the door to begin with. Within moments of telling him, she regretted it greatly. She’d thought, had she brought up the door, he would brush it off, tell her she was imagining things, tell her that she needed a rest - she found he slept quite a bit less than she did, and couldn’t help but wonder how he stayed up so long.

Instead, he took a great interest in her story of an ominous door out in the wilderness, and that was so much worse.

He took the backpack, full of tools for tinkering and food for the journey. He’d meant to make another one, but for some reason Winnie didn’t want to take hers. She’d allowed him to take her backpack, preferring to carry her book in her arms, knuckles white and grip like a vice on the old cover. He would have liked to say that this was peculiar of her, but he had come to expect, by now, her priorities to hinge on the book. Even if he didn’t exactly understand the bizarre reasoning behind her choices, he let her do what she felt was best. There was obviously great importance in that book for her, and while he himself might not have seen it, he didn’t say anything to her about it.

She took a deep breath as she trailed behind the scientist. She’d led him in a great circle around the door for a large portion of the day, insisting that they were going in the right direction - after all, she was using the compass he’d built, and his work was more than reliable.

It had worked well until he’d grown impatient and insisted on taking a look at it. She’d walked herself in at terrible circle, lost track of where she was compared to the door, and within five minutes of walking due north, he’d exclaimed excitedly and shoved the little device back into her hands as he rushed into the clearing.

She stuck close behind him, looking fearfully up at the door. She laid her hands on his shoulder, pulling him back away from it as she braced herself for something - she wasn’t exactly sure what, but she knew it was going to be something terrible. He may not have believed in omens and a witches intuition, but she couldn’t shake the feeling no matter what she did. “Wilson… I don’t like this,” she whispered. She didn’t know why she felt the need to, as if the door was going to hear her. She paused, thinking for a moment, disturbed to come to the conclusion that that was exactly what she was afraid of. She stood behind the scientist; he was much braver than she was in the face of this steel horror. “Please, let’s just go back to camp…”

“No, no, you don’t understand-” he started, shaking her off, moving closer to the door so that the whole thing transformed, opening up and gaping as if it wanted to swallow the pair of them whole. “This is the door!”

“Actually I understand that very well, it’s why I want to leave!”

“No, the door – the machine, the thing I built back in my attic, when Maxwell started talking to me through the radio. It was this exactly! This must be how he got me to this island in the first place!” he gestured wildly, excitedly. “Of course, I haven’t quite worked out how, yet, but a door is a door, and if I came through this way, it only stands to reason that the opposite remains true! My home may very well be on the other side of this contraption!”

Winifred wanted to argue with him, that sometimes a door didn’t work that way. Sometimes doors were much more complex, and that neither of them knew for certain what was on the other side of that door. He moved closer, and she heard the whispers grow louder, more excited. In a moment of panic, she did the only thing she could think to and reached out, grabbing the back of his vest and pulling him back roughly. He lost his footing and fell back hard, hitting the ground with a startled “Oof!”

He looked up at her. “Winnie,” he started, “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but gravity is still very much in effect on this island.” He picked himself up, dusting off the seat of his pants. “That rather hurt…”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I just don’t think that this door is a good idea. I have… a bad feeling about it. I mean, just – listen to it…”

“Bad feeling? Superstition has no place in the world of science. The only way to know for sure,” he said, giving her a knowing grin, “is to run an experiment!”

She held her breath, an incredible pressure building as he ignored her, further examining the door that loomed in front of them. Her hands balled into fists as she watched him, feeling the words rising like fireworks. Then, like a shower of gunpowder and detritus, she exploded. “You’re wrong! There are things on this island your science can’t even begin to comprehend! This is magic, Wilson - old, dangerous magic! Can’t you hear it?”

He looked down at her with a sort of bewildered concern. He knew that living out on the island could be harrowing on the mind, what with all the bizarre creatures and dangerous conditions, but he’d never expected Winnie to go so far off the deep end so quickly. He hadn’t expected this from her. He momentarily buried his intrigue and excitement in favor of a more gentle, condescending tone, though she could sense his persistent interest bubbling just beneath the surface of his cordiality. “Perhaps you should go back to the camp, Winnie,” he said gently, ushering her away from the door with saccharine sentiments. “It seems to me you’ve begun to hear things…”

She froze, digging her heels into the earth as he came to a stumbling halt behind her. “You… you really can’t hear them?” she breathed, looking back at him.

“Them? Them who?”

The question burned at the back of her mind as she tried to find an answer-  any answer that might convince Wilson to leave the door be, return to camp with her and forget they’d ever even found the ghastly, evil thing. She struggled, grasping at thin air as she tried to come up with some explanation.

“Just… Them!” she cried out, her voice strained and teetering on desperate as her breath came in shallow little huffs.

Wilson was quiet for a moment, trying to process her little outburst. As far as he’d known her, she was such a kind-mannered girl; this was very unlike her. “Winnie,” he said solidly, his hands at her shoulders. She stopped, blinking in confusion. “There is no ‘them.’ There is no magic. There is just this door, and the astronomical probability of home being on the other side of it. Now, do as you like,” he said, releasing her, “but I’ve been on this island long enough and would like to go home.”

She blinked, stuck in her haze of confusion as she tried to comprehend the tone of finality he had as he released her. He moved away and began examining the door again. The necklace she wore burned against her skin, a not-so-subtle reminder that Wilson had felt absolutely nothing from the mysterious stone. While she felt power and energy and magic when she held it in her hands, Wilson had made no comment on any of these sensations. He’d acted very much as though it were a regular rock. It had struck her as typical then, that he was not in tune with the magical energy of the world – he was a scientist, after all, keen on believing in numbers and facts rather than his intuition, or the pull of the universe. – but now, it struck her as odd. The door was alive, in a way. It whispered with a choir of hissing voices, the words mingling together in an incomprehensible swirl of ancient tongues as she struggled to understand them. The door opened, the gaping maw of void somehow causing the voices to grow louder, and yet Wilson still didn’t hear them! He was blind to the magic on this island, and he thought she was going mad!

“You can’t!” she stressed, grabbing his sleeve and pulling back with all her weight. “It’s not safe, it’s not what you think!” He pulled against her; she was a slight little thing, easily dragged forward despite her efforts.

This was getting ridiculous now. “Winnie, for sulfur’s sake, get off!” he said, giving her a great push backwards and shaking her long enough to reach for the door.  The closer he drew, the louder the whispers from through the veil, until they were roaring in her ears. She winced, and lunged for him, grabbing onto his arm once more as she shouted over the roar of the voices.

Wilson’s fingertips lighted upon the cold metal of the door.

With a horrible scream and a rush of air like a balloon popping, the voices surrounded them. The rush knocked them both back. Winifred landed hard in the grass and Wilson landed hard atop her, knocking the air right from her as his elbow collided with her stomach. She coughed, fighting to regain her breath as she tried to scramble back to her feet, shoving the man off of her and rising with a wobbly sort of effort.

As though it were going to rain, the clouds overhead grew dark, blotting out what sunlight struggled through the already dense cloud cover. With a familiar sinking dread, Wilson saw the snaking forms of black shadows rush across the ground. Behind him was Winnie, shouting as if she’d very suddenly gone deaf, her voice hoarse and cracking under her sheer volume. She’d scrambled to her feet and was tugging on his arm again, nearly pulling it right out of its socket as she tried to haul him to a stand.

With his feet back underneath him, he made it no more than a few steps before he saw the shadows rise from the ground like they had in his attic, lifting from their rightful place flat against the earth and forming ghastly shapes. Thoughe he couldn’t explain how, nor recall the memory of seeing the terrible forms change, he recognized the shadowy claws that reached out and grabbed for him.

Wilson was a man of science, of theory and execution and facts. He held the natural laws of the world as his own, upheld the honor of the scientific theory, and looked at the world as objectively as a human being could. He had yet to understand the science behind the door. He had yet to understand the biology of the creatures that seemed not much more than a mere shadow. And he would readily admit that!

But he would not call it something as silly and childish as ‘magic.’

He felt something cold and solid grip him around the middle, and in an instant his feet lifted clear off the ground. He heard Winnie scream, as another black appendage grabbed at her, catching her around the waist and lifting her up, high into the air.

The two creatures started sinking, retreating back into the earth as they dragged the two survivors with them.

She knew this feeling. It was the same consuming, suffocating chill she felt when she’d jumped off the docks back home. The memories rushed back to her as the shadows dragged her down, past the dirt and into oblivion. It came in a flash, the images of the boat shifting and changing around her, swallowing her whole as she accepted the man’s offer - the man himself, tall and lean and dapper with a wicked smile as he watched her fall. The light glinting across his face just a moment too late as a realized she’d made her mistake.

It was all a flash, a split moment revelation as the shadow claws dragged the two of them deeper and deeper down, and all went black around her.

* * *

The tall man flicked the the butt of his cigar into the snow, looking down at the pair sprawled haphazardly across the frozen earth. “Oh, You found my portal did you? You’d think you would have learned your lesson by now.” he seethed, displeased. Snowflakes fluttered down from the heavens, gently beginning to bury the two alive before they even regained consciousness. “Hmm. Let’s try something a little more challenging, shall we?” He said, a with a familiar wicked grin and a show of bravado.

Ah. They were beginning to stir. Best he take his leave.

“It was him. It was him…” she slurred feebly. Her mouth felt like she’d been eating cotton and her limbs felt as though they’d been cast with lead. Her head swam and buzzed and ached with a splitting pain all at once as she tried to shake the feeling of the cold hands of shadow clasping all-around her body. It was a feeling that crawled up her spine. There was the sound of crunching snow, and a pair of hands trying to shake her awake. “The man from the docks…”

“Winnie! Winnie, come on. We have a start moving or we’ll bloody freeze to death.” a familiar voice hissed.

Everything was cold, her cheek burning as her eyes fluttered open, the world coming into focus.

Winifred gasped.

“The man from the docks! It was him, he was the one who brought me here!” she said, bolting awake.

“That was Maxwell, yes,” he said, patiently. For all the times the grim man had paid him a visit, he supposed this must have been the first time she’d ever properly met the puppetmaster. If you could call the half-conscious encounter proper, at least, but that was all Maxwell ever seemed to afford them. He pulled Winnie up to her feet and sighed. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…” he recited.

“Where… are we?”

“Another island? Or… the same one. I’m not sure. But it’s winter, and it’s cold, and if we don’t start a fire before evening we will freeze long before nightfall.” he warned her.

“We– we went through the door.” she muttered, still sounding dazed.

“Yes, Winnie, we did, now please,” he spoke shortly, his voice urgent as he tried to snap her out of it and make her understand that winters here were unforgiving and they were dreadfully unprepared. “When Maxwell took us, something happened, we lost our supplies–”

She gave a start, checking the inside pocket of her cloak for her book. There was a moment of sheer panic before her fingers felt the form just beneath the fabric. She let out a sigh of relief, which materialized in a puff of shimmering silver before her. “It’s okay. I’ve still got it.” she said, pulling it forth, the tone of cheer in her voice palpable. It wore away at Wilson’s nerves. The book wasn’t important - not when they were very remarkably incredibly close to freezing to death!

He grit his teeth. “Brilliant. If we get bored while we’re succumbing to hypothermia, I’m sure it’ll make a good read. Now please, I need you help–”

She looked more than a bit offended, but placed the book back into the pocket of her cloak and stood straight, arms wrapped around her shoulders as she shivered. “What would you like me to do?”

“Resources. Rocks, flint, wood, grass. Anything you can find, meet back here before the sun starts setting. Understood?”

She nodded at the cut and dry directions, pulling her cloak further around her and taking off to forage the supplies he needed. Despite the cold, her cheeks burned. She felt rather foolish for worrying so much about her book. Her book hadn’t kept them from getting pulled through that door. Her book hadn’t kept them from being stranded in the dead of winter with no food or warmth. She stooped, picking up a small piece of flint, placing it into her apron pockets.

Winifred shivered as she trudged through the snow. She had to wonder what the purpose of the door was. It was a peculiar thing, to go through so much trouble to evoke the ancient forces of shadows, just to catapult Wilson and herself into the Winter Wonderland from hell.

She kept an eye to the sky, watching the light as the sun crested. Noon passed, and she had her pockets full of cold berries and her arms full of bundles of sticks.

Winifred paused, spying something remarkably out of the ordinary.

* * *

Wilson shivered, desperate to warm his hands as he gripped the axe he’d made. He truly hadn’t meant to snap at Winnie like that. He certainly understood her reliance on the book. She’d not been out here nearly as long as he had. Bless her soul, this madness wasn’t her normal yet. And for that book to be the last reminder of a normal life she had - well no wonder she clung so tightly to it!

He felt bad, actually, that he’d been so harsh. But he’d been through hard times like this before, back at the old camp. He’d seen unforgiving winters that had nearly killed him, seen how difficult things like finding food were when you couldn’t leave your fire for more than a few hours in the day. Every single second counted, now, and he’d be damned if he died out here, after everything he’d survived, all because he’d been foolish enough to fall for the same bloody trick twice.

He flexed his cold fingers, noticing with a creeping displeasure that he couldn’t feel the wood of the handle.

One, two logs, into the fire, a waste of good wood but the best he could do. He had to keep the flames going somehow, and that was the only kindling he had.

He was one more shiver away from shoving his arms up to the elbows into the fire. It was so dreadfully cold, and he sniffled, feeling his body begin to defrost by the warmth of the roaring fire.

“Wilson! Wilson!” came a voice on the wind. He looked up, squinting against the snow flurries that seemed intent on assaulting him. Slowly, Winnie’s form became visible through the unfortunate drift.

Her nose, ears and cheeks were remarkably red, her fingers curled into the fabric of her cloak as she approached their makeshift camp. She was smiling.

Huh. Guess she hadn’t taken it as personally as he’d thought.

“Wilson, look!” she beamed, toting what looked like an apron half full of food things, and… a radio on a stick?

“What is that you’re carrying?” He asked, his cold discomfort momentarily forgotten in favor of his curiosity.

“Mushrooms! I found a Faerie Ring, of all things, can you believe it?” she said, delighted. “I had to leave some daisy crowns and the gold I found along the way, but I don’t think they minded…”

Wilson shook his head, doing his best to ignore her talk of fairies. “Not– not the mushrooms. The contraption you’re toting around.”

“Oh!” she seemed to have forgotten she was carrying it. “I found it, out there. I thought you might… be able to use it. For your science.” She offered it to him.

It felt awkward in his hands, and he frowned at it. “Er… thank you,” he managed, examining the face of the ancient looking device for a moment before turning his attention back to her. He watched in mild shock as she emptied her apron, and then took of a back pack, emptying it of all sorts of odd and potentially useful things, among which he couldn’t help but notice another one of those red gems, like the one she wore around her neck. She certainly seemed to like those things. He couldn’t for his life imagine why she’d apparently tied it to one end of a particularly sturdy-looking stick, but truthfully he didn’t dare ask.

“Winnie–” he started, setting the odd staff down for a moment, moving to her. She made a sudden movement, and suddenly he couldn’t see, and really it was all very alarming until he realized what had happened and he pushed the rim of the wool cap up over his eyes again. “What–?”

“It’s wonderful, I found all this stuff alongside the odd machine there! There was no camp in sight, I can’t imagine how they could have gotten there, but I don’t think they belonged to anyone!”

He paused. Oh.

“Ah - no, suppose not…” he said, glossing over the fact that the snowfall had probably concealed a corpse. It wouldn’t have been the first Wilson had found. Previous victims of the island who hadn’t been nearly as lucky as he and Winnie had been. “Thank you, Winnie..” he said, pulling the cap down over his ears. It was remarkably warm. “Listen…” he watched as she moved closer to the fire, sitting herself down on the frozen ground and pulling her book out of her cloak. He could see her scribblings and scrawlings inside. If he hadn’t known any better, he might say the contents looked like a poorly organized scientific journal. “I’d like to apologize.”

“No need, Higgsbury,” she said lightly, her voice holding no animosity, “I’ll admit my priorities were a bit off. I, too, like not freezing to death. I know it might seem like a silly old book to you.” She picked up the gem she’d tied to the stick, examining it with care, her wrappings done precisely. “But it’s important to me. My life’s studies are in this book, and if I lose it– you think I’m limited now–”

“–hush,” he quieted her quickly.

“I just - I mean, I appreciate all your help. You didn’t have to–”

“No, I mean hush!” he hissed, listening carefully.

Winifred fell silent.

Wilson listened to the sounds carried on the wind. Over the whistle of the snow, there was a faint sound, one that his ears could barely pick up, but one that they were well trained to catch.

There was a stretch of silence as she tried to hear what he heard. After a moment, her eyes went wide, and she gripped the little branch she held, tucking her book away once more as she clambered to her feet.

Wilson held a finger to his lips as he waited until he heard it again, looking over at her.

“Did you hear that?”


	6. To the Dogs

Wilson’s jaw locked as he listened.

“What is that?” Winifred asked, her voice quiet.

“Hounds,” was his answer. It was a single, tense word, as he gripped the axe and stoked the fire. The light flooded the area, giving them a wider berth of working room. She was stunned as he shoved the axe into her hands, quickly making a new one for himself. It was crude, little more than a sharp piece of flint tied expertly to a branch.

The sound came again, punctuated by one long, low howl that echoed through the camp. It chilled her blood, her heart sinking as she realized that he was preparing to fight.

The Hounds weren’t the first beasts she’d encountered since her stay on this bizarre island. She’d come across spiders, huge arachnids with fangs and eyes that glowed in the dusk. They’d swarmed out of massive nests, but she’d managed to avoid them well enough so that they weren’t a bother for her. They scuttled around and she’d learned if they didn’t see you, they would usually leave you alone. They had terrible eyesight, which she was grateful for; it made her scavenging all the easier, to know she could so easily hide from the hostile creatures that lurked in the forests.

But by Wilson’s reaction, Winifred feared this wouldn’t be as simple as laying low, keeping quiet and not drawing attention to themselves. The sounds were growing closer, and the gentlemanly scientist was in a tizzy, his movements quick and nervous as he prepare for the coming battle. “Aim for the neck,” he told her, “swing as hard as you can. And for the love of science, please, please try not to die.”

Another howl cut through the air, sending chills up both the survivors’ spines. It was so much closer now, though neither of them could tell exactly where it was coming from. The area around their hearty fire was dark, black as pitch in the night, and there would be no telling where the hounds would come from. Winifred held the axe out before her, wandering carefully around their roaring camp fire as she watched and waited.

One more howl, deafening in her ears. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wilson wince, and her grip tightened on her axe in apprehension. “They’re close,” he said. “They’ll be upon us any moment—“

He was cut off by a violent snarl, as Winnie saw the black form lunge from the shadows. It took Wilson down, slamming him shoulders first into the ground. He swung the axe with all the force he could muster, digging it deep into the hounds shoulder. It cried out, stumbling enough that Wilson was able to knock it off of him.

Winifred swung wildly the moment she saw movement in the shadows, every nerve in her body on edge as she caught a hound in the muzzle with the butt of her axe. There was a sickening crack of bone as the hound fell. Wilson buried his axe in the beast’s neck, having laid two of them dead as Winifred tried to gather her wits. She swung at a third that had stalked forth from the darkness. It was an expertly placed blow to the creature’s neck, and she was rather shocked she’d managed to land a hit like that, but with a dropping, sick sort of feeling, she realized it hadn’t done anything. The hound simply shook it off, baring its teeth, jaws dripping with slaver. She’d upset it. She raised her axe once more, and her heart dropped. The hilt had snapped clean in two. She was holding little more than a broken stick. The actual Flint of the axe had fallen back behind the hound, which was stalking closer as she backed up towards the dying fire. Their little ring of light was rapidly shrinking, and soon the head of her axe was swallowed by the darkness as well. She took a shaky breath, a half baked plan forming in her head as she watched the advancing hound.

With one last push of desperation, she turned and ran. It was a short distance to where she’d been sitting while she and Wilson had talked together during the evening, but the hound was faster and more powerful than she was. It leaped at her, tackling her to the ground, knocking her back as its jaws snapped inches from her face. A foot at its throat was the only thing keeping it from closing its jaws on her as she struggled, gripping the broken end of the axe with white knuckles.

It barked and snapped once.

Twice.

Thrice–

She took her chance, swinging her arm around as the beast’s jaws snapped shut inches from her face. With a sickening squelch, the splintered end of the branch plunged deep into the hound’s shoulder. It thrashed, half collapsing as it tried to bite at the new pain flaring in its back. Winifred scrambled, barely even lifting herself from the ground as she reached for her weapon, her buzzing fingers closing around the hilt as she watched Wilson just about lob the head off of one of the creatures, his own axe giving up as well as the stone started to crumble. He looked back at her in alarm as two more of the hungry hounds circled around them, pressing them even further into the small, dying campfire.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wilson pat down his pockets, looking for an extra piece of flint or even a particularly pointy stick that could help fend off the hounds.

He came up empty handed.

Winifred took a deep breath, steeling herself. She had one shot, or they were both going to become dog food. With a practiced flick of the wrist, she took careful aim.

There was a great flash, like a small explosion that cut through the air. It all happened so quickly, with Wilson’s attention elsewhere, that he didn’t exactly see what happened, but all at once the hounds were retreating and, to his great surprise, they were on fire. The smell of singed fur wafted through the camp as one fell, scorched to death, and the other retreated into the darkness. What in Galileo’s name had happened?

It didn’t matter – as the first rays of daylight peeked over the horizon, the world was quiet again. The fire between them fizzled out, leaving nothing more than a smoldering heap of hound to warm their camp, but the horrors of the night had finally passed, leaving them somehow alive.

He gave a sort of shocked laugh, the vestiges of his stress still audible in his voice as he pressed a hand to his forehead, looking over at Winnie, who was whooping and clutching that stick she’d tied the gem to.

She seemed delighted – and had every reason to be, of course! They had just cheated death, after all!

“It worked!” she exclaimed, not even minding the stink or the chill of the snow through her clothes. “It worked, it really worked!”

He grinned, her delight and relief contagious, catching fire almost as easily as those last two hounds had. “It did! That’s really something, isn’t it?” he chuckled, grabbing one of the slain hounds by its hind legs, dragging it closer to the camp so he could work on cleaning it. It was a rather disgusting task, but one he’d learned during his time on the island. Monsters like the hounds never yielded much, but anything was better than nothing. “We certainly got lucky there, at the end. What do you think that was? Lightning, perhaps? Some kind of, spontaneous combustion?”

Winifred slowed. “Spontaneous–?” she shook her head. “I—I don’t know, actually.” She said, laying her makeshift wand down in the snow. For now, she was happy. For now, she was relieved. By some Stroke of Luck or astronomical miracle, it had worked. They were alive, and despite the fear and adrenaline, they had won against the odds - and against about six hounds.

Wilson got to work cleaning the carcasses while Winifred began cooking what little edible meat came off of the animals to begin with. He’d warned her when they began that the meat from certain animals on the island may not be the best fit for consumption, but they plan to eat it anyway. The winter was harsh and kept any crops from growing, which made it hard for Winifred to forage like she would in the warmer seasons. She still scavenge for supplies during the daylight hours, but the Wilson, who had had ample experience with the winter months on the island, had found that they had to rely on meats more than foliage in the winters. But Winifred, new as she was, was still greatly inexperienced with the harsh weather.

Wilson was surprised to find how well they worked together – how easy it was to split tasks between them, even in the dead of winter like this, where every moment counted and wasting time or resources walked the line between life and death. He didn’t work well with people – it was something he’d been told countless times over the course of his life, and something he wasn’t averse to admitting. It was a simple fact – he was much better in academia when he didn’t have to carry others or conference with them before going along with his theories and experiments. Very simply, he worked better on his own.

But as he sat by the fire with the strange device Winnie had brought, he tinkered with the dials and examined the base, all while chatting amiably with the girl, he was surprised to find that he rather worked well with her. It was an odd concept to the scientist. He’d never really seriously considered what it would be like to have help out here.

“I still can’t believe you found this all the way out there.” He said lightly as she cooked the last of the spoils. “I’ve been out here – well, not here, exactly, since I don’t know where here is – but I’ve been around for a while, and I’ve never seen one of these before. I wonder what it’s used for…”

“Well, I saw some flowers poking out of the snow this morning. Maybe that means the frost is ending soon. If spring rolls around, we can leave camp long enough to find out!”

“Sounds as good a plan as any. You know, Winnie–”

“—Winifred–” she corrected lightly, without any of the irritation she’d felt when he’d first used that name. It was more of a reflex, now, a stubborn insistence that she barely had to think about.

“—You’ve had your nose buried in that book quite often, lately,” he tried. “I understand it’s important to you, but I’m still rather curious about what it is.” He tried to sound nonchalant about it, as if he didn’t really care.

Stars and atoms, he cared. The question had been lodged in his magnificent brain for almost as long as he’d known her. And when a question made a home in his head, it itched away until he answered it. But he’d known answering this particular question wasn’t going to be easy, if she was as guarded about the contents as she was the actual book itself. Part of him hoped that all this time out in the woods with him, fighting off spiders and the elements and hunger and hounds might have softened her up to him, but there was no guarantee, and as he glance over at her, stock still and sizing him up, he felt a great misstep.

A silence stretched between them for a long moment, and she laid her hand over the book as it lay next to her. He was right, of course. She’d been studying and gathering and planning spells in advance for when the frost ended. After her wand had worked with such magnificent success, her interest had been piqued. She wanted to explore the wondrous possibilities this world brought in light of her magical prowess. She wanted to know more and more, more than she’d ever been able to study under the staunch façade of the normal, mundane life she’d had in the other world. Here, her magic had power – immediate, incredible power, and it was something she so desperately wanted to master.

She took a short breath and looked back to Wilson. “It’s my studies,” she offered simply. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. She was still reluctant to tell him that she practiced the craft, especially after what had happened at the door.

She wondered what his tipping point would be. She wondered how long it would be before he realized that what she was doing actually was magic. It was unusual to her that he should witness things like this and then not yet believe in her abilities. And yet at the same time she was grateful that he didn’t believe in magic, because if he did she didn’t know what she would do. There was the inevitable reaction that she expected once he realize that she was performing magic. He, a man of Science, surely would not take kindly to her practices. But stubborn as he might be the last thing that Wilson was, was stupid. She entirely anticipated his figuring her out. For her it was only a matter of when. How long does she have before he started to understand? How long did she have before he tried to run her out of the camp?

But those weren’t worries for today. He seemed to accept her answer. He, too, was a well-studied man. His own Science Machines and the rare, cherished schematics he found scattered across the island were a blessing, a wealth of knowledge that Wilson relied on greatly for his own sanity. He understood the value of one’s studies, and for now his curiosity was sated.

He continued tinkering with the device, turning one dial until he heard a click, then tinkering with the others until he managed to turn the device on. Winifred looked up in surprise as it emitted a low tone, long and slow and deep in pitch. It sounded almost pitiful.

“Now what could be the purpose of that?” she asked, baffled and bewildered as it made the disquieting sound again.

Wilson pursed his lips, clicking the dials back into their off positions.

“I’ve not the slightest.”


	7. Things and Things

With winter on the decline, Winifred was delighted to find flowers poking through the dirt, new blooms opening every day as the weather warmed. She picked every flower she came across, using them in tonics with boiled pond water and adding it to the odd goop Wilson had made from the felled spiders. Not only did her tonic water boost the rate at which a bit of the goo healed your wounds, minor or major as they may be, but as an added perk you didn’t smell like death all the time. A clean spring fragrance was always an upside, in her books.

“Are you certain this many flowers is really necessary?” Wilson asked her as they walked. She shoved another fistful of petals into her apron pockets – into the backpack – she wove even more into a flower crown, and he finally had to draw the line when she’d started sticking them haphazardly into his hair.

“Absolutely!” she said. “One can never have too many flowers! Oh, the things you can do with them!” she said, plucking another lily from the grass below. “Oils and tonics and incense and smudging!” She sounded absolutely delighted as she stuck the new lily into her already overflowing crown.

“You certainly have odd hobbies, don’t you?” he asked, looking over at her. Never had he heard of someone being so thrifty with flower petals before.

Winifred pressed her lips together in a tight line and fell silent.

Hmm - that was right, he thought, following a pace and a half behind her. People didn’t usually take kindly to having their hobbies insulted. He ought to know.

“Though,” he said quickly, “I suppose it’s not much stranger than habitual dissection…” She glanced back at him curiously, a look of mild shock on her features. He merely shrugged. “It’s science,” was the only explanation he offered.

Winifred decided not to dwell on it long. “Well… I can’t say you’re wrong. I do have rather odd hobbies. Most people don’t readily agree with how I spend my spare time.” She tiptoed around the subject, testing the waters now that he’d offered her some common ground.

Oh.

_Oh._

Wilson hadn’t really thought of it in years – certainly not since he’d landed on the island. It seemed so inconsequential now after everything that had happened, but it was still there, his memory impeccable as ever. He certainly understood the animosity of being told your life’s greatest passion was inappropriate and blasphemous, that the pursuit of higher knowledge was to be abandoned in favor of any number of things Wilson didn’t want – a mundane life, a dead end job; a family, children – all things meant for someone else.

“Winnie, I didn’t mean–”

“It’s fine,” she said quickly. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No! Do you know how many times I’ve said that? Oh, no, it’s fine, you didn’t mean any harm. Oh, no, no worries, no problem! You know what, Winnie?” he hopped a few paces ahead, stopping her. “They always mean it.”

She came to an abrupt halt, looking up at him in some alarm, half recoiled as he gave his testament. She gave him a hard look. “I know they do.” She sounded tired.

Wilson went very quiet; hearing this coming from her held an unexpected weight to it. In that moment, he realized they shared the same sentiments, the same disquiet on the subject. She knew what it meant, and she knew what it felt like - she had to. Though he might not have had any way to be certain, he felt in that moment beyond the shadow of a doubt that Winnie knew all this already.

He considered it greatly, worrying at his lip for a moment as he mulled over his options, how best to continue. It wasn’t something he was good at; it was something he avoided more often than not. Avoidance was why he’d moved to the mountains in the first place, back in the world where things made sense and monsters didn’t lurk in the dark.

The scientist took a great breath, his shoulders drooping as he resigned himself to the conversation. “Years ago I had this great falling out with my family,” he explained to her. “They thought all sorts of things about science – that it was an insult to God and that people who studied would be damned to eternity in Hell.” He was very serious and solemn about the whole thing, utterly lacking his usual lighthearted cheer despite the unfortunate circumstances.

Winifred snorted. That certainly sounded familiar.

“I’m serious!” he reiterated, misinterpreting her exclamation. “And – I – I don’t know, maybe they were right…” He suddenly sounded unsure. “…be-because, well, I ended up here, didn’t I? But if it weren’t for my science I wouldn’t have survived a day out here! And I wouldn’t give it up for anything, Miss Winnie, nothing,” he said solidly, with more conviction than he thought he’d be able to muster.

Quietly, her heart ached. What if he were right? What if this was some sort of horrible divine punishment? Were the Gods displeased with her? Were they reprimanding her for putting her sisters in danger?

Perhaps he saw the thoughts on her face, perhaps he too thought a little too long on his own words, but he gave her a brief shake. “I’m sorry, Winnie. Truly, I didn’t mean that. Whatever it be, whether flowers or those stones or your studies – whatever it is, I’m glad you’ve got it, here. It’s not odd, it’s brilliant!” He gave her a great, beaming grin, looking more than a little apologetic as he released her, stepping aside to allow her to pass him again.

She gave one nod, taking a short breath as she continued, trying to process any of what had just happened. Wilson was, in some ways, a kindred spirit. He understood what it was like to have everything you held near and dear to you vilified. He knew what it was like to have to leave home because of everything you subscribed to.   

“You don’t even know what it is, Wilson,” she said, keeping her voice light, jovial as she gently mocked his melodramatic sermon. He was so enthused on the subject, and she certainly understood why. Without the coven, without her sisters, her craft would have been dreadfully alienating. She got the notion that Wilson didn’t have the same kind of support in his sciences before being spirited away to the island. “For all you know I could be an undertaker, or a collector of human bones.”

“Highly unlikely,” he said smartly. “Inexperience dealing with carcasses, little tolerance for the unpleasant effects of death, and when I was cleaning the wolf not twenty four hours ago, you asked if you could see the ‘finger bones’ when I was done – which, I don’t believe I ever got back, which worries me a bit.” He hummed thoughtfully. Winifred kept from laying a hand over her apron pocket. He shrugged it off.

“Okay, you got me. Not an undertaker, nor a collector of human bones.”

“Well then what is it that you do? I’ll admit, I’ve been dreadfully curious – and you have been rather secretive.”

She wrung her hands together. “Well…” she ground out, uncertain if this was a conversation that she wanted to have at this moment. There was quite a bit on her mind between the task at hand and the ever-looming mystery of the powerful magical forces present on this island - the very things that made structures like that awful door possible, and that which drove the ability behind her wand. These were dangerous things to be dealing with, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted the added stress of trying to explain to Wilson the nature of her craft, not after he’d been so adamant about her lunacy when they had stood at the door. “It’s… a bit complicated. Hard to explain…” she murmured, clutching her book as they walked.

“Well, I am a scientist, Miss Winnie, I do believe I’ll be able to understand.”

She hummed, thoughtful for a moment as they walked in silence. She was trying to decide how best to explain to him without being so terribly blunt.

Should she use the word witch? Should she call it magic? Metaphysical manipulation sounded more like something he would easily believe. Should she mention the Gods? He didn’t seem like the type to ascribe much to any church, let alone a pantheon thought to be long dead. “It’s—a craft…” she started. “I’ve been taught since I was little, from my nanny. She used to teach me how to draw–”

“Ouch!”

She was cut off quite suddenly, and found herself grateful for the chance to focus on something other than the minefield of words she was trying to navigate. She spun back around to face him, rather alarmed by his sudden shout.

Wilson stood there, balancing on one foot as he favored the other, and he watched as Winnie stooped down, digging around in the tall grasses for a moment before pulling up his assailant – a golden crank, the knob of which had been sticking upwards in the dirt and had stabbed him rather unforgivingly in the foot as he stepped down on it with all his weight, meager as that was.

“What a peculiar thing!” she remarked, turning it in her hands. It was metal and gold, gleaming in the sun despite the fact that it should be been caked with dirt and bits of grass. “What did you find, Mr. Higgsbury?” she asked curiously.

“Damned if I know! Wish I hadn’t though, that smarted.” He tested his weight on his foot gingerly, the pain seeming to have diminished after the initial shock. He glowered up at the thing that had nearly turned his ankle. It seemed to be a crank of some sort, but to what he couldn’t imagine. He took it from her hands and began to examine it himself before making short work of placing it in his backpack. The old wooden handle to his science machine was a little worse for wear, and a crank like this would be a great improvement. “Right then,” he huffed shortly. “Onwards? More flowers to pick!”

* * *

The little excursion had been fruitful – in a rather literal sense! The pair had found quite a few berry bushes past the tall grasses where they’d found the crank thing, and Winnie had taught him how to identify the edible berries. Among the flowers, they’d found a few beehives, which meant a bounty of honey was awarded to them after a small war with the angry bees. Bee stings had never really bothered either of them until they arrived on the island. As a scientist, Wilson wasn’t sure what had happened along the trying path of evolution that led to some of the developmental abnormalities of the animals here, but the bees were more or less the size of his fist – each! It was entirely disconcerting and neither he nor Winnie were keen on trying to ward off bees of that size ever again.

Despite that, they’d managed it back to camp with more than a few cups’ worth of honey, an apron full of berries and some carrots, more petals than Wilson was willing to admit was entirely reasonable, and the odd crank thing that he had unfortunately stumbled upon during their travels.

“You know, Winnie, if we keep finding gadgets and gizmos out there in the wilderness, I might be able to build a proper machine someday.” He stood back to admire his work, testing the crank carefully on the newly modified science machine. He would very much like to build a proper machine out here someday. Perhaps that was why he was having such a hard time coming up with the plans for his next science machine – he simply didn’t have the parts he needed. Satisfied that the original science machine would run more smoothly once again, and that the alchemy engine still had some kick left in it before he’d need to repair that as well, he moved across the camp, picking up the odd radio device Winnie had brought back the other day. It had remained behind during their few days out and about, but now that they were back at the main camp, he was still incredibly curious about the device.

“A proper machine? What would you use it for, Higgsbury?” she asked, quietly squirreling away a portion of the honey they’d gotten for her craft. After the hound attack the other night, they were running dreadfully low on the healing salve Wilson had made. The healing properties of honey were well known, even outside of the witchcraft community. It stood to reason it would make a wonderful healing salve itself. The honey poultice she’d made would do well with a little bit of a magical kick, she thought smartly.

“Science, of course. Can never have too much science, out in the wilderness!” He nodded to himself. “I’ve been meaning to make an upgrade for some time now – even before you arrived! But I can’t seem to hash out the plans.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she hummed, wrapping the poultice up to store for later use. “You are a genius scientist, after all!”

“That I am…” he said, his voice slow and deliberate and low as he focused on the device in his hands. He fiddled with the dials again, brow furrowed in concentration, his aimless wandering coming to a gradual grinding halt as he muttered to himself, standing in the middle of the camp with a radio on a stick.

Winnie couldn’t help but pause once she was finished with the poultice, looking up at him. What a peculiar man he was… muttering away over the broken device she’d brought back on a whim. She’d expected him to take it apart, to use it in various contraptions around camp, like he had that crank thing; she hadn’t anticipated him trying to fix it.

He must have touched the wrong dial, because all at once the device turned on, giving off the loudest blaring siren either of them had ever heard. Wilson jumped, a look of absolute terror on his face as he nearly dropped the thing, and Winnie had to cover her ears. It was a horrific noise that chased the birds out of the nearby trees, each even and unwavering note just as loud and unnecessary as the last.

Wilson very quickly turned it off again.

“What was that? What did you do?” Winnie asked, perhaps a bit louder than she intended to.

“I—I’m not sure! How odd!” He hadn’t done anything to the device, really! The knobs seemed useless except for turning it on and off, and he hadn’t tinkered with the inside machinations!

He gave the camp a sweeping examination. Perhaps something they’d brought in was affecting the radio signal, which was already scrambled by the sounds of it. Not much had changed at the camp since they’d left on their expedition. In fact, the only thing that had changed was—

“Brace yourself, Winnie, I’m going to test a hypothesis!” he said, hand poised on the dial. Taking his cue, she placed her hands over her ears. Her hands smelled strongly of honey and pollen. Hmm.

Wilson gritted his teeth against the impending noise, turning the dials just so to activate the strange device.

Oh, stars and atoms that was loud! He frowned deeply, stepping a few yards back away from the campfire. Almost immediately, just as he’d suspected, the signal became fainter. It was almost imperceptible, but it was there. He moved closer, and the thing went off like crazy. It grew louder with every tone the closer he drew to the newly repaired science machine.

He switched it off, a bit of relief on his ears as Winnie looked up, her hands dropping to her lap as he could see the gears turning in her head.

“Miss Winnie, I think I may have figured out what exactly it is you’ve found–”

She stood, a bit hesitant but eager as she took a closer look at the thing.

Winnie was so perplexed by the strange device, with this new bit of information. Wilson’s hypothesis had proved correct, and even she knew what it meant the device was. She spoke softly despite the ringing in her ears. “A divining rod…”


	8. Onwards

“A divining rod?” Wilson asked, and Winnie could sense the skepticism in his voice.

“Yes, it’s – oh, it’s difficult to explain. They’re used to find things. Traditionally, they’re used to find water – often as simple as a forked stick used to guide one to a well or stream. But my sisters have told stories of divination much more complex…”

“Divination? You’re talking, crystal ball, fortune teller types? Is that where you got all that lunacy about the door and – and magic? Your sisters have some interesting stories to tell, I admit, but that’s all they were, Winnie, surely you know that much–”

“But!” she interjected, speaking over his quiet displeasure. “Let us assume for a moment that they were not simply stories! You have to admit that things are strange here – even the beasts, the whites of their eyes–”

“—Sclera.”

“Wilson,” she said, her voice measured and careful, “please, just for a moment, entertain the idea that maybe there are things in this world that are beyond the grasp of science.” She wanted to convince him, somehow, that this world extended beyond anything he could possibly imagine, despite not wanting him to know she personally practiced her witchcraft. Perhaps it was something akin to a desire to be understood – she knew things about this world, things that shouldn’t have been, things that wore away at her mind, and she seemed to be the only one of the pair that noticed them. She was certain it had to do with her predisposition to magic, but never had she seen someone so willfully ignorant to the forces that surrounded them.

The scientist huffed, frowning as he stuck the thing back into the ground, where it rested undisturbed and quiet. “Winnie, please, I won’t have any of your stories. I’d very much like to figure out what this thing is meant to do, and why that crank thing affects it so. I appreciate your contribution, but honestly – divination? Magic? I simply can’t allow myself to consider such nonsense. Magic isn’t real, Winnie. Honestly, you’re a grown woman.” He chuckled, almost nervously as he addressed the matter at hand. He could hardly believe that someone as sensible as Winnie kept pushing such nonsense. First at the door, now the strange device… he supposed it was hard to remove her from a notion once she got it in her head, however ludicrous it may be.

He knew she was like him, in some ways. He knew he did the very same, and Einstein help you if you tried to tell him differently, once he had his mind set on something. But Magic? Spirits and shadows? Divination? It was almost laughable.

Almost.

He could see she took offense to such things, his assurance that there was no such thing as Magic hitting a sore spot with her. He shuffled on his feet a bit awkwardly, and sighed. She wasn’t a child, and there was no reason for this, but he humored her anyway. “Say, perhaps, it is a… _divining rod_ …” he said, the words tasting sour and uncomfortable in his mouth. “What exactly would one do with it?”

Winnie was quiet, for a moment. Despite his offer – and what she could only call understanding, though she knew it wasn’t truly – she was still more than a little hesitant. This was a slippery slope. Would she reveal what she knows now, only to have him put two and two together in the near future? Would he even think to consider her a witch, with his blatant disbelief and staunch scientific values?

There was something strange about this island, about the magic and the shadows that crept around their campfire in the night, and she so badly wanted to know the secrets that pervaded this place. While Wilson was a brilliant scientist, she thought perhaps that was why he’d been unable to leave this island. Perhaps the key to escape lay in the shadows, in magic.

She wanted to unravel the mysteries behind this place, and maybe even get them home. Even if she wasn’t sure where that meant for her, now, it would be worth the struggle to rebuild her life if it meant not having to survive against creatures like spiders and hounds and monsters that so eagerly preyed upon them.

In short, Wilson discovering her craft was a risk she was willing to take.

“It can be used to find objects,” she explained, getting up and moving to the science machine that bounced rhythmically away at the front of the camp. “The rod is tuned to this, but this seemed to be only a small part of a machine. It’s possibly that the contraption will lead us to the rest of it.”

The idea of finding spare parts to build with certainly piqued his interest. He was still wracking his brain to design another science machine, something that would further aid their survival out in the wilderness. If there was even so much as a chance that they would stumble across more mechanisms out in the woods, even if Winnie’s theory about the so-called ‘divining rod’ were inaccurate, he was willing to go out looking for them. And if it made Winnie feel better to take the strange radio device and pretend it would help them find these things, then so be it.

They spent the afternoon preparing, with plans to set out early the next morning, the very moment the sun peeked over the horizon and dispelled the shadows. Wilson had Winnie cook the last of the hound meat to pack, along with some of the honey they’d gathered. She argued with him to pack light as far as food was concerned, because she’d be more than able to forage for them day to day, but he was rather anxious about starving to death out in the woods. She knew he had good reason of course; he’d been out here so much longer than she had, on his own, and had undoubtedly seen tougher times that made him wary to repeat his past mistakes. But she was confident in the terrain and the gifts of the land.

And so they’d compromised, coming to a comfortable middle ground, leaving the honey and berries home, as he believed she was right in saying she’d be able to forage plenty of both from the surrounding world. Because of this, they had room left over in the back pack, and as he finished making some last-minute inventions in the dead of night, Winnie finished packing for their little excursion.

* * *

Wilson grit his teeth, trying to ignore it.

Winnie had been using that blasted contraption the whole time they’d been walking. It emitted a low, deep, slow sound every once in a while. It was a very faint sound, one that shouldn’t have grated on his nerves as much as it did, and yet there he was, about to go out of his bloody mind if he had to keep listening to that tone.

She seemed entirely unfazed as the thing led them through the wood and across an entire savanna plane, where the Beefalo seemed to have much the same opinion on the noisy device as Wilson did. The nearer the pair drew with the contraption, the louder the beasts bellowed in return, entire herds shuffling away from the sound. Of course, they did all that anyway, regardless of whether or not one was carrying the noisiest walking stick in creation, but Wilson fancied they were especially annoyed today, as the pair paraded ridiculously through their territory like the world’s smallest marching band, with Winnie and her divining rod at the lead.

He tried to remain optimistic; optimism was a vital survival skill out here, and he’d learned to cling onto it for dear life. He continued to remind himself of the possibility of finding more odd mechanisms, of finally inventing the machine he was so keen on creating. He just knew that once he saw all the pieces laid out before him, he would just know. It was an unorthodox method, he would admit, but one that rarely failed him. Even in his home in Falmouth, he had been well skilled in the art of improvising innovation. On-the-fly inventions constructed from whatever he happened to have lying around his modest little cottage at the time. Old rubber tubes and bent forks, buckets or a bicycle wheel or a pair of cuff links he’d never worn. Anything he could get his hands on was subject to his inventive genius.

That was the only reason, really, that he’d agreed to this little excursion.

“Winnie, the signal hasn’t changed since we started. Do you think, perhaps, we could turn it off for a while?” he asked, hoping she’d at least see sense enough to agree. He fought the urge to drag his hands down his face as he groaned inwardly. Seemed he’d spoken too soon, or rather this was some cruel cosmic irony, because no sooner had a hopeful tone punctuated the end of his sentence did the tone suddenly shift, rising in pitch and tempo ever so slightly.

The look on the girl’s face would have been bright enough to stave off even the darkest of the shadow creatures that lurked in the night. Pure, unbridled excitement jolted through her as she gripped the divining rod, practically jumping into the air as she followed the signal, walking in winding, senseless paths to make it grow stronger and stronger. He followed close behind, jogging to keep up with her. She was headed north, making a beeline straight out of the heavily wooded valley and directly into—

“Woah, Wait – Winnie, wait!” He caught her arm, nearly dragging her backwards as he stopped her heels from leaving the grass. He knew Winnie was a bit new to the island, but surely she saw what trouble lay ahead. Muddy lands and barren landscaped, populated by nothing but twisted trees, warped with thorns. Everything seemed dull and dangerous just beyond the grass, and he didn’t exactly think it was the best place for the girl – inexperienced on this island as she was.

She stumbled back, nearly knocking into him on the way, the sheer force of her stop throwing her back a bit. She found her center of gravity and got her feet back beneath her fairly quickly, and looked back at Wilson curiously.

He nodded over her shoulder. “That’s swamp up ahead. Not the best place…”

“But there’s another piece in there, I can feel it!” she stressed – and indeed, she meant every word. There was a familiar buzzing in her body that grew with every increased tone of the divining rod, as though it were resonating with her entire being, like a vibrating glass. She herself couldn’t explain it; perhaps it was magic, perhaps it was the Gods guiding her along the path to safety, away from this wretched world. She didn’t know, but she was willing to trust that feeling, even if it meant crossing the swamps.

“Whatever you’re feeling, it needs to be approached with clear logic, Winnie. You can’t just go charging into a place like that, you’ll get killed – or worse!”

“Or worse?”

“Look,” he said, ignoring her skepticism at his hyperbole, “stay on the pathway, okay? Just do that much for me? Creatures are less likely to wander onto the path. Can you do that?”

“I’m not a child, Higgsbury, I don’t appreciate being patronized.” She said, continuing on, though she was certainly more mindful of the path now. If she were honest, she hadn’t notice it before, and was ready to go charging off of it without a second thought. She wasn’t exactly prepared to admit that to Wilson, however, and kept her mouth shut as they walked together, listening to the radio signal as it grew weaker and stronger, quieter and louder with every winding, twisting step they took into the swamp lands.

“Wilson,” she whispered, coming to a slow stop. Her feet were planted firmly, solidly at the end of the trail, her toes not daring to cross the line into unprotected marshland. He came up behind her and peered over her shoulder.

“Ah. That is a problem, isn’t it?”

“No, look,” she said, and he could actually hear the grin in her voice. He brought his gaze up, seeing what she saw laying in the muddy terrain maybe twenty or thirty feet away.

It was a glint of metal among some hastily tilled earth. It looked like a little farm, and Wilson’s mind began to work, planning a basic farming plot for the camp – it would do them wonders, really. But that wasn’t what he was greatly concerned about at the moment.

Oh, no. He knew what was on her mind.

“Winnie, don’t,” he warned, as she shoved the divining rod into his hands.

“Don’t what?” she asked, knowing full well what he meant. Without any further hesitation, and before Wilson could jam the thing in the ground properly enough to grab her, she took off, darting through the muddy terrain directly towards the metal lump.

Wilson dropped the divining rod with a discordant thunk, darting into the marshlands after her; every nerve in his body was tense, on high alert, knowing what lurked just below the surface of the mud. “Winnie! Winnie, don’t stop!” he called after her, watching as she slowed, just a few feet from the cobblestone that had been paved around the dry, infertile garden.

To his great dismay, she her slow pace turned to a pause, turning back to him as he called to her.

The ground bubbled, the telltale sign of something angry and wild slithering beneath the mud, and before he could even find the breath to warn her, a great purple limb tipped with spikes the same color as the scaly speckles mottled across the length. It swung wildly, reaching blindly for its target, and Winnie gasped, ducking to avoid the swing of the spikes.

There were more bubbles, more unfolding tentacles as she trampled the muddy earth, staggering back away from the danger only to disturb more of the creatures.

Wilson practically tackled her, shoving her down onto the cobblestone as several more tentacles rose from the muddy depths, all lashing out at the same time, a whirlwind of spikes as she hit the ground, Wilson collapsing next to her as they both coughed with the impact.

The tentacles writhed and searched for their opponents, but came up empty handed, eventually slinking back into the earth, hidden neatly beneath the watery ground. There was almost no sign of them, save for the few little bubbles that struggled to the surface every so often.

Winnie sat up, dizzy as she blinked.

“What were those things? Oh my stars, they were monstrous!” she was a bit paler than usual, eyes wide as she scrambled to her feet, suddenly understanding why it was Wilson was so wary about the swamplands.

“Tentacles,” he replied, sitting upright as she stood. He shifted awkwardly, keeping one leg extended and scooting back with some effort so that the heel of his foot didn’t hang over the edge of the cobblestone. “Nasty, sneaky buggers they are. And they pack quite the wallop, too!” he hissed through his teeth, rolling up the leg of his pants, examining a great gash where a spike had dug in on its first swing.

Winnie made a horrified little squeaking gasp, her hands flying to cover her mouth as she saw what the creature had done to him. “Wilson!” she dropped the odd device and moved to examine him. The leg of his pants was torn wide and bloodied, the gash rather deep an wide, reaching the length of his calf. It stung something awful as he sat in the dirt and the mud, and though he was able to stop the bleeding fairly quickly, he was certain this wasn’t exactly hygienic treatment.

“How is it,” he grunted, shifting to keep the pressure off his leg, “that I keep getting the short end of the stick looking for these bloody things? I’m not entirely convinced any science machine is worth the trouble.” He complained, but there was a tone of lightheartedness to it. Yes, this hurt like the dickens, but he’d sustained worse, and was fairly confident he’d be okay, so really there was no reason to worry her any more than she already seemed to be.

She dug rather frantically through her own backpack, grabbing the rolled up honey poultice bandage she’d prepared three times before recognizing them as what she was looking for. She undid one, adding a sprinkle a powdered mix of Lavender and Echinacea, two flowers that grew in abundance in this world. She’d wondered how many survivors who found themselves on the island knew the wondrous uses of the flowers.

“Hold still,” she said, approaching him with the makeshift bandage.

He looked at her as if she were daft. “What is that? Honey on paper?”

“Well… yes. Just keep still! It might sting.” She said, applying the dressing. She laid her hands over it, focusing intently on his injury just beneath her palms, trying to be discreet as possible as she smoothed the bandage out.

“There.” She said, nodding as she finished. “I think you’re going to survive.”

“Thank you, doctor. I was really very worried.” He said dryly back at her, playing along.

“If you want my official prognosis, I’d say you’ll be good as new in a few hours. A proper dressing can really work magic, you know.” She grinned, her choice of phrase deliberate and carefully delivered as she rummaged through the backpack again, to ready them for the coming night time.

He let the turn of phrase slide, shaking his head as she began to set up a temporary camp fire among the farming plots. He was a little skeptical of her prognosis, but he wasn’t going to argue – not right now, at least. He made a mental note to bring it up later.

For now, he had her hand him the newest addition to their wares – a strange lump of metal, with no obvious purpose or function.

He turned it over in his hands as she worked beside him, stoking a roaring fire for the night. He examined it closely, silent for quite a while as he tried to make heads or tails of the thing with little success. After a long moment, he sighed heavily, setting it aside and shifting himself carefully to lie on the cool, hard ground next to the fire.

“Are you alright?” she asked, quietly, as she handed him a helping of roasted carrots – they always seemed to have an abundance of carrots.  

He took the flat stone from her, looking down at it with some concern. After a long moment, he spoke.

“All this, for a – for a metal potato!”  

* * *

Wilson never got the satisfaction of pointing out that her prognosis had, in fact, been wrong. When the next morning came, he noticed an odd sensation in his leg, where the tentacle had caught him, and upon removal of Winnie’s odd concoction, found that the wound had all but healed over. He’d been flabbergasted, for lack of better word, almost unable to believe what he was seeing. If his trousers hadn’t been so bloodstained, he wouldn’t have believed the swamp creature to have done any more than lightly brushed his leg, the previous evening.

When Winnie woke up, he held his tongue. He didn’t want to admit to her that he’d been rather surprised, shocked even, that her dressings had worked so well! Not even the salve he made from ash and spider glands worked quite as well as whatever it was she’d applied to his injury last night. Of course she must have known, and if she knew, then she knew he was avoiding it all together, but he preferred the silent resignation over facing her that he’d been wrong.

With the metal potato thing in tow, the two made it – very carefully – back to safe ground, gathering the divining rod and making their way slowly on.

It was another thing that Wilson was reluctant to admit – though it was a ludicrous idea to entertain, Winnie’s divining rod seemed to lead them to several different pieces of a machine, blaring loudly without fail once they’d come close enough. Wilson had to remind himself more than once over the next two or three days as they travelled that correlation did not equal causation. Just because the things happened to appear in the same general areas as the divining rod’s fits, that didn’t mean they were directly related.

But related or not, he was excited to build again. Over the course of three days, they’d found three more things – he couldn’t exactly say what they were, but he already had a rough idea of what he was going to build with them, how he was going to fit them all together. It was a prototype, of course, just plans in his head, but he was sure he’d get it right eventually.

Even with the three new pieces, Winnie still had them trekking the island, following another signal as though she expected it to work every time. Wilson told himself over and over that it couldn’t possibly work every time – that once it didn’t work, he would be certain that it was all just an incredible coincidence.

Which is why, when the signal came to a crescendo, an all that was present were two flat wooden platforms, one much smaller than the other, both tethered fast to the ground, he let out a sigh of relief.

“See, Winnie? There’s clearly nothing here to take back. I say we head back to camp and work on assembling the pieces we found – I’m sure I can make something useful out of all these things…” he said, making to lead her away before she picked up another signal.

He wanted this to be over with for several reasons. Not only did he not like being away from the main camp for this long – goodness only knew what kind of monsters were lurking closer and closer to their camp while they were away! – and not only did he want to get to work tinkering with the devices they’d found, but he desperately didn’t want to have to think about the implications of their finds. It would be so much easier to forget that the divining rod had seemed to work flawlessly once all of these bizarre components were fashioned into something that could aid in proper science.

He began to lead the girl southwards, again, back to their camp, but she slipped from his herding, doubling back to examine the larger wooden platform. She pointed at the symbols painted on the face of it, squinting and gesturing to each as though she were counting.

Seemed he wasn’t going to get off quite that easy.

Winnie ignored the scientist’s protests for a moment, engrossed in the engravings on the wooden platform. They were old symbols, a runic alphabet she’d learned to read in its most basic form years ago. Constance was much better reading runes than she was – always had been – but Constance wasn’t here right now, and the best Winnie could do is make out the rough translations—

“Wilson.” She said, solidly, as he was already walking. The tone of her voice sent a chill down his spine, and he regrettably came to a halt, looking back at her. She looked up from her work, the slightest frown on her features, creasing between her eyebrows. “The runes. It spells “Mackswell.”

That was, quite possibly, the worst thing she could have said. He clenched his jaw. “All the more reason to leave it alone, in case you’ve forgotten about the door. I’m not sure I want to fall for that a second time.”

Winnie wasn’t listening to him. She was rummaging through the backpack, laying each of the pieces out before the platform in a frenzy. The longer she stay in this odd world, the stronger that familiar buzzing in her fingers became. The ground was warm, the amulet around her neck powerful as ever, and the familiar feeling of magic coursing through her veins. There was something big brewing just beneath the surface, and she knew that if she could just get to it, she could figure out a way home.

“Wilson, you have to build something!”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked, taken aback by the sudden outburst.

“I—I don’t know what, but you have to! These are the pieces, I’m sure of it, they go to this… thing! Here, come here, try! It has to work!” she said, dragging him by the elbow closer to the platform.

It was finally something he could say he’d been right about. The moment he saw the various things laid out before him, all present and lined up neatly in front of the wooden platform, they all seemed to fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle, interlocking pieces that assemble effortlessly under his hands.

He didn’t know exactly what it was he’d built, but as Winnie stood by, clutching the divining rod, he knew deep down it was built correctly.

At the moment, it just looked like a pile of junk.

He hummed thoughtfully, examining the contraption he’d built. He had no clue what it was, or how to work it, but he knew that it was missing something.

He spied the smaller platform, walking over to it, bending slightly at the waist as he examined the hexagonal impression in the center of the disc. “What’s this, then? It looks like something might fit in there. Are there any more pieces left?” he asked, looking back at Winnie, who shook her head.

Drat.

“Are you sure? Perhaps we missed something?” he asked, moving to her. “Go on, turn on your divining rod, let’s see where it brings us!” he said. There was a long pause. “Ah… Winnie?” he asked.

She stood there, staring quietly at the divining rod as though she expected it to perhaps start walking on its own, or to speak to her – although, given his experience with mysterious voices from the radio, he quite hoped she wasn’t waiting for it to speak to her.

Then, without another word, Winnie moved past Wilson, placing the bottom of the rod’s handle into the slot in the disc. There was a locking sound as it slid in, shaped perfectly for the platform.

Winnie turned the key.

There was a horrific metal screech as the machine came to life, shifting to lift off the ground, joints buckled inwards as it struggled to stay upright.

“Are you sure about this, Winnie?” Wilson asked, warily as he joined her at the edge of the platform. “We—could go back to the camp. Forget this exists.”

“No,” she said solidly. “We can’t. I know you don’t believe me but there are things out there I have to know.” She said, reaching for the lever.

“The pursuit of knowledge…” He sighed, resigning himself to the fact that he would very likely do the same, in her shoes. “A noble cause. All right then. Let’s get this over with.”

Despite the high probability of something horrible happening, Wilson steeled himself, watching carefully as Winnie threw the switch.


	9. The Game is Afoot

“What?”

He looked down at the two, sprawled unconscious across the ground. It was unusual. It was disconcerting. An unexpected winter usually killed off his pursuers, leaving them rotting away in a frozen wasteland long before spring came. But these two seemed a little more resilient than the rest who searched for him.

“You’re still here? Impressive, but you should probably stop while you’re ahead.“ There was a laugh, a familiar, conceited chuckle, but was tinged with a sort of faux suavity and nervousness, and had either of the survivors been awake, they might have even heard it. But there was no one to applaud Maxwell’s theatrics as the two remained barely conscious. He sneered down at them, and in a puff of smoke and shadow, disappeared into thin air.

Again, Wilson was the first to wake. Given the chance to really think about it, he might have been alarmed to find that he was beginning to grow used to that. The feeling of being dragged through reality itself by some unspeakable creatures of the night should have warranted more than a slight headache. He sat up, taking a deep breath as the world came to a rest around him, no longer swimming. He blinked.

More forest.

It was disheartening, but they were safe, at least. Winnie began to stir without his help, and before long they were both back on their feet.

He didn’t know exactly what it was she’d been expecting to find, but he could tell by the look on her face that it wasn’t this. She looked lost and confused, surveying the surrounding area as she tried to make sense of it. It was very clearly different from where they’d just left, but still just as much a blank and barren woodland as it had been when she’d activated the strange device. “Winnie…” he started, “it was worth a shot. And – and you were right about the divining rod!” the words were stiff and insincere, but he offered them anyway.

“No…” she muttered, looking around.

“No?”

“No! This isn’t right, it should have worked! I felt it, Wilson, I know you don’t care, but I felt it, this was supposed to work!”

It wasn’t that he didn’t care; quite the contrary, he was rather concerned, actually – she seemed to be taking one failed hypothesis rather personally. But her delusions about magic had been the unilateral cause of her distress. He wouldn’t boast to her that he’d been correct, that all her musings and stories and bad feelings had been little more than a product of her imagination. It was the truth, of course, but he was a little more gentlemanly than that.

Very gingerly, he reached a hand out, and patted her shoulder. The movement was stiff and awkward, and he very nearly held his breath doing so. She sensed this, his uncertainty in the basic movement catching her attention and she looked curiously up at him. She gave him an almost disbelieving grin, and snorted.

“Thanks, Higgsbury,” she said, with a strange sort of smile; the kind of smile that said ‘it doesn’t really make anything better, but I could tell you were trying anyway.’ She heaved a sigh, stooping down and yanking the divining rod from its place in the smaller wooden platform.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Well, thanks to my hair-brained idea, we lost all the pieces. If the divining rod goes off, it might lead me to more,” she said. “You need them for your machine, don’t you?”

He did, actually, but he was rather surprised to hear her offer. Not because he expected her to be spiteful or anything of the sort, but it struck him as quite the rebound. Over the years, if one of his experiments turned sour or fell through, he often experienced a period of time where he would do anything to make it go right. It got him into a bit of trouble, on more than one occasion – most recently, landing him in this trying existence.

He supposed he’d expected her to be more off-put by the failure.

“Ah – yes. I guess I do!” he said brightly. “I’ll be sure to make something brilliant from them this time, don’t you worry!” he said, moving with her as they began to traverse the new landscape. Where had this thing landed them this time? It seemed pleasant enough – plenty of resources around them: berry bushes and flowers and flint, saplings for sticks and carrots poking out of the ground.

They’d only had a few items with them when they’d activated the last contraption, and Wilson was willing to wager that they would probably never see either of their previous campsites again. Shame, too. He’d tended to his original camp site since the day he’d arrived. It was almost sustainable, there, but that had been before the door – his own doing, really, Winnie had suggested going back – and was undoubtedly lost.

But with another pair of hands, setting up a camp was much easier than it had been the first time around. Things moved so much more quickly – he didn’t have to worry about finding food, as Winnie took care of that easily for the two of them, leaving him more time during the day to set up his science machines. They were fairly easy to build, provided he had the right materials. Sometimes, when Winnie returned to camp without another mysterious piece of a machine-to-be, she would come back with other miscellaneous things he needed shoved into her apron pockets, and she was always happy to spare a few rocks or a piece of gold for his inventions – not that he really knew what she needed them for - so he was very surprised when she returned one day with little more than a few handfuls of berries and petals.

“What happened?” he asked, with little concern for the evening. They’d worked tirelessly over the last few weeks to rack up a stock; sometimes Winnie even stopped by the camp in the middle of the day to drop off an apronful before heading back out the way she’d come. As such, they had enough to last them the coming day, but he couldn’t help but notice an air of uncertainty about the girl as she cooked over the flames.

“I ventured further north today,” she said, prodding a piece of cooking rabbit with a stick she’d stripped of its bark. “I found more land up past the rocklands, but there was… something in the way.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“I’m not sure how to explain it. They were… obelisks.”

“Seems pretty straightforward to me.” He hummed, half lost in thought as he tried to adjust the lever of the science machine he’d built earlier that day. The blasted thing never seemed to hold right. Shame she hadn’t come back with one of those crank things. Would have been useful just about then.

“Well that’s the thing! I took the pick you built, thinking I might be able to find more flint, or stone – I tried to break down the obelisks, but the pick didn’t even put a scratch in them! I must have fought with it for an hour, Wilson, and nothing!”

Ah. He paused, looking over at her curiously. That was a bit odd, then, wasn’t it? “You sure you were holding the right end of the pick?” he asked.

She frowned deeply at him.

“Kidding! Kidding.” He held his hands up in surrender, reattaching the lever of the science machine and picking up his backpack. “Well, I’d like to see these obelisks first hand if you don’t mind, miss Winnie!” he said, enthused. He was always up for a good scientific exploration, and quite frankly he’d been itching to leave camp for most of the day.

“They’re about half a day’s walk from here,” she said. “If we leave now, we might make it before sundown, but the trip back will probably be in the dark, unless you want to camp up there.”

“All viable options! I’ll bring wood for a campfire, just in case – you pack that axe, and whatever foodstuffs you see fit, yes?”

“You really think you’ll be able to science your way through the obelisks, Higgsbury?” she asked, grinning. It had taken him quite some time to grow accustom of that little habit of hers. He was a very first-name-basis kind of person. To have someone address him as Higgsbury outside of a professional setting rang alarm bells in his head that they were upset with him, but she seemed to do it out of fondness. It baffled him greatly for quite some time, but he was beginning to get used to it.

“I can science my way through anything!” he boasted, one arm folded across his chest as he stood straight. “I’m a genius, it’s what I do!”

“Alright, genius, don’t forget a torch.” She picked up her own backpack, shrugging it on as she led the way, following the familiar landmarks as she took the path northwards.

Wilson was glad to follow her through the wilderness – the path she took was winding, and they stumbled across many resources he filed away in his magnificent mind to be recalled later, for when he needed something specific for some invention or another. There were reeds he could use for paper parchment, or for a makeshift aqueduct if they decided to start a farming plot by their camp. Further along, there were tall birch trees that were beginning to turn a deep rust color – a new source of wood, and perhaps food, if those birch nuts turned out to be edible.

They arrived at the obelisks before sundown, which was a relief. Wilson hated travelling during the night – even with the torch. They were so flimsy, so unreliable, and if it rained there was no hope but to set something on fire and pray it didn’t go out as easily as the measly little torch did.

Winnie set up a camp fire as he took to observing the obelisks. They were tall, slick like obsidian, and just as she’d said, impervious to the pick axe he’d crafted back at camp for just the occasion. The tool crumbled after a while, leaving Wilson holding a splintered handle as he looked down at what was now a pile of pebbles at his feet. “Huh,” he remarked quietly.

“So, did your pick do any better?” She asked him, standing up from the fire as he stood staring quizzically at the obelisks. One hand balled into a fist behind his back and the other at his chin; he looked rather silly, in Winnie’s opinion.

“Not even a scratch, just as you said!”

“See! They’re something incredible, aren’t they? Personally, I’d like to meet whoever built these,” she said shortly, laying a hand at one as she admired it. She recoiled quickly, grimacing. “Or—maybe not,” she muttered.

“Hmm? What’s the matter?” he asked, taking her place over the fire to rummage through the backpacks, looking for the carrots she’d packed. “Other than the indestructible obelisks, of course…” He trailed off as he frowned, emptying the contents of one of the backpacks onto the ground in front of the light of the campfire. Where were those blasted carrots?

She glanced over her shoulder at him. She was reluctant to say anything, especially after her insistence that the wooden platform would lead them home had only led them to another desolate forest, with little to survive on. They’d had to start all over again because of her, because of some silly feeling she’d had. “Uhm… it’s nothing.” She waved it off hastily, turning back to the obelisks and touching her fingertips gently to the smooth, flat face of the tower.

“If you say so,” he hummed, reaching for the other backpack, which was laying on its side by the fireside. The moment his hand gripped the loose top flap, he heard a squeal, his hold slipping and he nearly threw the small pack across the field as he shot back in alarm.

The backpack started squirming, and a moment later the flap was pushed back, a small horned head appearing in the dim light. The large, luminous eyes of a rabbit, who still had the end of a carrot sticking out of its muzzle. Wilson watched dismally as the tip of the carrot quickly disappeared, and the rabbit hopped off into the evening. He turned the backpack upside down, a handful of greens attached to carrot stubs falling to the earth with a pathetic pitter patter.

“Winnie… it seems we’ve got a bit of a problem…” he said.  

“Other than the indestructible obel—oh.” She’d turned around, greeted by a handful of eaten carrots. “Uhm. Okay. That’s – fine! That’s fine. There’s still a good half hour of daylight left.” She said, plucking the unused torch from the ground. “You can stay here, keep an eye on the fire and our belongings. I’ll go see what else I can find!” she replied cheerily, as though a small rodent hadn’t just eaten several days’ worth of rations right under their noses.

“Be careful, please,” he said hastily. “It’ll be dark soon, it won’t be safe out there. If you get stuck in the dark–”

“I won’t,” she reassured him, optimistic as ever with a great grin. “I’ll be right back. See if you can’t make heads or tails of those obelisks while I’m gone.”

He nodded; it was a plan as good as any, he supposed. He watched her disappear into the trees, swathed in rapidly fading light as she went off into the wilderness alone.

Without further ado, by the light of the setting sun, Wilson got to work.

He tried everything he could think of – stones and flint, axes and fire, water, dirt, digging at the base of the obelisk in hopes it was buried shallowly enough for him to push over. The obelisks seemed solidly rooted in the ground, unbreakable, impassable, unbelievably sturdy. He absently wondered who’d built them, as he worked tirelessly to dismantle even one. The harder he struck the smooth face of the structure, the faster his tool cracked and crumbled, and the more shock his arm took as he tried to even put a scratch in the surface. He wondered exactly what these dark towers were made of – they seemed to be made of some form of obsidian, and by all logical reasoning, should have been marked by the flint, which was a full two points above obsidian on the standard hardness scale. By all logic, he should have been able to at least put a scratch in the surface, if not pick away at one of the towers.

Despite all that, they remained stubbornly intact. There was nothing he could do to deface the obelisks, let alone mine them down to a more reasonably sized obstacle.

So wrapped up in his work was he that he hardly noticed the sun setting, leaving him in a ring of fire light, barely illuminated in a white-washing glow. By the time he realized that he was squinting up at the obelisk, trying to see it in the dark, he was standing at the edge of a shrinking ring of safety. When he realized how dark it was – how far into the darkness he was – a pang of fear went through him, and despite the looming work of the mystery of the annoyingly indestructible obelisks, he moved immediately to the fire side. No feat of genius was worth standing out in the darkness for too long.

He used the greens of the ruined carrots to fuel the fire. They burned quickly, but gave the fire a wide berth as he sat and waited for Winnie’s return.

A small pit of nervousness settled itself in his chest as he prodded the fire, keeping the flames roaring through the night. How long had she been gone? He’d been so wrapped up in his work, he had completely lost track of the time. He hated her being away from the camp at night. She still didn’t know what sort of creatures lurked in the dark, and he certainly hoped it remained that way, but the nagging little voice in the back of his head reminded him that everything had been going belly-up since long before he’d been dragged to this terrible island.  He half expected the days to come and go without her return.

How long had it been since she’d arrived? There was no concrete way to tell – the seasons had come and gone in fits, and the days escaped him easily. If he were to guess, he would say that it had been, maybe, somewhere in the vicinity of three, perhaps three and a half months since he’d met her. It was hard to judge.

But he’d found that he was, already, remarkably used to her presence. The idea of living with someone, back at his home in Falmouth, had been vile and deplorable and he’d make a face every time someone mentioned it. And of course, he knew that this was the same thing. He was, effectively, living with Winnie. They shared the same living space, at least. But it was surprisingly comfortable – as comfortable as one can be, fighting for their life on a deserted island full of peril and things that want to eat you.

The thought that she might not come back presented itself to him frequently as the night wore on, and it felt remarkably lonely. He’d rather liked having an assistant out here.

Fireflies had caught his eye on more than one occasion, and his gaze had snapped to them, thinking perhaps they were Winnie’s light, but to no avail. They simply flitted in and out in the night, buzzing away some yards outside the perimeter of the impromptu camp.

The sun rose.

Winnie still had not returned, and Wilson was beginning to regret coming up here. He wished he’d gone with her – at least then he wouldn’t just be waiting around.

Half the day passed.

Winnie still had not returned.

It wasn’t until he saw a flash of red – not a bird, not a hound, but a blouse – that his pacing came to a halt as he rushed to meet her halfway. “Where did you go? You said you would be right back!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” she said, “Food is hard to find in the dark!” she offered, tipping the contents of her apron in front of the fire as he followed, hovering a few feet behind her. “I had to fight off a turkey, of all things, eating the berries off of every bush I came across, but I think I managed fairly well!” she boasted, as he surveyed the bounty.

His stomach growled.

He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.

“Winnie, I hate to be the bearer of bad news…” he said, picking through the pile. “…but I don’t believe most of these are edibles…” He was rather surprised at her; she was usually so knowledgeable about what was to be eaten in the wilderness. Why in the name of the Newton had she brought back so many mushrooms? There was a variety of mushrooms in the pile: redcaps, greencaps, bluecaps, all different shapes and sizes. How had she even found so many?

“I was actually meaning to ask you! I’ve never seen mushrooms like this in my life, Wilson – and I work very closely with ingredients like this–”

“—I thought you said your trade was drawing?”

“What? No. Why would you—never mind! I meant to ask you if you know of these,” she said. “I figured I’d gather them regardless, but I don’t have the slightest clue. You’ve been here longer than me, so I thought you might.”

Wilson picked up one of the strange bluecaps, examining it closely as he turned it in his hand, spinning it between his fingers. “I… do my best to avoid mushrooms. It’s not exactly prudent to fall ill out here, as you can imagine.”

Winnie seemed a bit disheartened at this, and with good reason. She’d certainly meant what she’d said, earlier – it was hard, to forage in the dark. She knew she was remarkably hungry, and she would wager a guess that Wilson was as well. What she’d managed to bring back in berries and greens wouldn’t be enough to sate them – not by a long shot. She’d been hinging on the mushrooms being a viable food source.

“Well…”

“Well?”

“If I remember correctly… one of them are actually edible, when eaten raw. I can’t—I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think it may have been… the greencaps? I’ve always had a dreadful time remembering which mushrooms are which, that’s why I avoid them!”

“Well, there’s a fair amount of greencaps,” she said, beginning to pick through the pile. It certainly made sense, to her. Redcaps were likely hallucinogenic; bluecaps – why, she’d never even heard of them! It seemed reasonable that they were bizarre plant native to this world, with its unsettling creatures and its magic. She made a mental note to put the blue mushrooms away for later. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out,” she said, picking one up.

He picked one up as well, looking at it dubiously. He was… pretty sure. He knew that eating the mushrooms had never outright killed him, before – quite obviously – so that much was a reassurance. Even if it made him sick, it was still something he’d be able to recover from.

Starvation, however, was not.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he said, frowning at the mushroom before he took a bite. It was crisp and bitter and Wilson near about choked, turning his head and spitting into the grass, He coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Winnie, I don’t think–”

There was a crunch, and she made a similar gagging sound, heaving once and swallowing hard as she tried not to be sick.

With the bite of greencap swallowed, the world around Winnie began to swim.


	10. Double, Double

“Winnie? Oh - no, no, no, Winnie–” He practically leapt over the fire pit, grateful in hindsight that the flames had been long extinguished, or else he might have caught fire. He moved to the girl, who was wide eyed with a sickly hue to her features. That had definitely been the wrong mushroom. He grasped her shoulders, shaking her gently, trying to get her to focus on him. She blinked twice and looked up at him. Her pupils were dilated greatly, and her cheeks were pale. He’d certainly eaten a foul mushroom or two during his involuntary stay on the island, but never had he and such an immediate reaction to one before. He let out a sigh of relief. The green ones were the hallucinogens. It was lucky, even though he’d been dreadfully wrong, that he hadn’t suggested the redcaps which, he was fairly sure now, we’re almost certainly poisonous.

Well this was unfortunate circumstances indeed. The sun was still climbing, true, but what with such little food and Winnie absolutely intoxicated, there was no way Wilson saw them getting back to camp in one piece. He pressed the back of one hand to her forehead and sighed, sitting heavily next to her. He supposed there wasn’t much to do but wait and watch over her until the effects wore off. He knew, from personal experience, that it could be rather frightening, being alone with little handle on your mental faculties. He patted her shoulder once more before he dropped his hand to the earth, leaning his weight back on it. “Alright, miss Winnie, I suppose we’ll take a little rest then, you and me,” he huffed.

Wilson looked down with a startled little noise to find Winnie’s hand clutching like a vice at his sleeve.

“Wilson…” she whispered, her voice full of fright. “Wilson, it’s looking right at us.”

The urgency in her words sent a chill down his spine, and he cast his gaze to the expanse of woodlands before them. The line of trees was still quite a ways away, but he searched every inch of the landscape before them, trying to find what it was that had her so spooked. “What do you mean? Where is it?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“It’s right there—right there!” she said, not daring to move a muscle as she gripped onto him. “It’s right there, don’t you see it?”

He gave the landscape one more sweeping look as she trembled, slowly reaching outward. “Winnie, dear, it’s fine. It’s–” he paused and pondered just how fully she believed whatever strange hallucination she was experiencing. “—it’s not going to hurt you,” he reassured her gently.

“No—no, Wilson–” She grew frantic and clambered to her feet, snatching up the axe handle that had been sticking out of the top of the nearest backpack. She brandished it wildly, holding it with both hands in front of her as she braced herself.

He quite suddenly didn’t know what to do. He’d thought perhaps they might be able to just wait it out, but now she was brandishing a weapon, clearly not in her right mind as she threatened some invisible monster that existed only in her mind. He rocketed to his feet as well, taking several stumbling steps backwards as he removed himself from the range of her weapon. “Winnie! Please, just put the axe down! Nothing’s going to hurt us, there’s nothing there!” he said, gesturing widely towards the empty expanse of forest that she was so warily watching.

His voice was loud in her ears, but she wasn’t really hearing him. Her heart beat heavily against her ribs as she adjusted her grip on the handle of the axe. She knew Wilson was trying to coax her to put the weapon down, but she’d heard his stories about the creatures who lurked in the dark – she’d squared off against enough creatures in the forest: spiders and hounds and tall birds that would chase them for miles. She wasn’t about to let this thing, this creeping, crawling creature of shadow, come any closer.

It scuttled forward on numerous legs, its form hulking and threatening, but uncertain as it shimmered in and out of her vision, even as she looked straight at it. The whole creature shifted, growing taller and slimmer as it opened its mouth to reveal jaws lined with sharp, jagged teeth.

Wilson shouted, jumping out of the way as Winnie swung the axe, a swift schk! cutting through the air as she hit nothing. “Winnie! Winnie stop! You’re going to hurt someone!” he said, coming carefully up behind her and grabbing her arm before she could make the second swing.

“What are you doing?” She struggled, trying to swing again, or throw him off, or reach the axe he held suspended in her hand above her head – anything! But he held her fast, wrestling the weapon from her and holding it high above his head. He was a fair bit taller than she was, and even as she jumped and nearly climbed the man trying to get her weapon back, it still remained safely out of her reach. “Wilson this is madness, please! Please, give it back! It’s right there–!”

“You’re absolutely right about it being madness, now please! I can assure you that there’s nothing threatening either of us right now. Whatever you see—hrrf–” he tossed the weapon aside, and grabbed her around the waist when she tried to dive to it, holding her fast and adjusting his grip on her, one hand at each shoulder as he straightened the both of them, doing his best to keep her gaze on him instead of the imaginary beasts she was fighting. “—whatever you see, it’s not real. It’s just your imagination, Winnie, please, look at me!”

She slowed, still rather startled as he finally seemed to be gaining some control over this situation. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, talking to her in a soft, quiet voice rather than raising it again. “Okay. That’s better. Now listen carefully. Whatever you see out there, whatever it’s doing, it’s not going to do anything to us, okay?” he asked; she nodded, her eyes still wide, pupils dilated. He noticed her gaze travelling over his shoulder, and gave her another little shake. “Look! Pay attention, Winnie. We’re going to stay here, okay? We’re going to stay here until you feel better, and then we’re going to go back to camp, any nothing is going to attack us.” He knew that was a promise he couldn’t really keep – he knew that at any moment, hounds could start tracking them, or one of those terrible giants could come stumbling across them. But as far as the creatures she was seeing, he was certain in his reassurances.

She nodded once more, taking a deep breath and focusing on him as best she could despite the way her vision had begun tunneling, getting wobbly at its edges, tinged with red as she couldn’t help but see the shadow creature lurking, creeping closer just behind Wilson.

He lost her attention completely, and he could only imagine the things she was seeing, what horrifying monsters were manifesting themselves in her mind.

“Winnie, focus on–”

“Look out!” she nearly screamed, and even though his grip on her shoulders was firm, she lashed out, shoving him hard and sharp in the chest. It broke his grip on her, and he stumbled back before losing his footing, hitting the grass hard.

Winnie dove for the axe, and in the split second that it took Wilson to pick himself up again and gain his bearings, ready to wrestle the axe from her a second time – preferably without losing any limbs – he watched in stark horror as she was tugged down from her leap, hitting the ground hard before she was dragged several feet.

Wilson stood in shock for a moment as she screamed, kicking once before scrambling to her feet. It was an automatic reaction, to arm himself. He didn’t want to, but he had to entertain the idea that maybe Winnie really had saw something. Maybe there was something dangerous there, and if that were the case, she needed help.

“Up!” she screeched, clutching her arm as she struggled to her feet.

It took a moment for him to register that she was calling instructions. He angled his blow at the last moment, and though he didn’t feel anything but the momentum of an uninterrupted swing of the heavy weapon, she cheered. He supposed he’d hit something!

He couldn’t see, feel, or hear anything, but Winnie assured him he’d hit it. She picked up the pick that had been dropped unceremoniously at the edge of the camp fire when Wilson had abandoned his work the night before. With her uninjured arm, she swung wildly, and the scientist had to duck just to avoid being clipped by her ferocious attack.

She watched with the last strike as the creature screeched, disappearing into the ground once more as it separated, receding into the shadows as no more than disjointed wisps of darkness.

She breathed heavily, the thing having fled or died, she wasn’t sure which, but Gods it was a weight off her chest. The tinge of red slowly faded from the corners of her vision, and she blinked up at Wilson, swallowing thickly. “Believe me yet?”

It was a heavy sentence, one that suggested she meant more than just about the invisible creature they’d just fought and, he was fairly certain, defeated. He could spend quite a bit of time dwelling over the meaning of her words, and in the coming days, would, but for the moment, the looming concern of her injury drowned out all other worries. “Winnie—your arm…”

She took a deep breath, gripping at her shoulder with white knuckles. She looked down, examining the damage. There were four very neat wounds – three below her elbow and one above it, each round and ugly and bleeding terribly, the blood dripping down and pattering against the grass.

“It—it looks like something bit you!” He sounded shocked as he gingerly lifted her arm to examine the injury. Indeed, it looked like a bite mark, like a hound’s but larger somehow.

“It did bite me!” she said solidly. “I told you it was coming! Ah—don’t do that!” she hissed, as he poked and prodded. There was something unusual about the skin surrounding the wound. It was discolored, grey and flecked with an almost indiscernible black. The veins visible under her skin seemed darkened. He was a bit surprised when she tugged her arm back away from him. That’s right. It must have hurt something awful.

“R-right. Let me just…” he held up a hand, gesturing for her to give him a moment, before rummaging  through the backpacks again. “Ah… Winnie… you- you packed the poultice, didn’t you?”

There was a beat.

“Didn’t _you_?”

Ah.

Well.

“Okay! No problem! Not a problem at all!” he said, standing straight and giving her one more look. “Oh, goodness you are… bleeding, a lot, aren’t you?” he cleared his throat.

Alright, Higgsbury: time to think on your feet.

He was an inventor! Thinking on his feet and being resourceful was what he did best!

Winnie sat heavily at the fireside, undoing the clasp of her cloak with one hand, casting it aside. She was rather cold, but she didn’t want to get blood on her cloak, ruining it further. “Hand me that bag,” she said, gesturing vaguely as she held a hand out for the strap he handed her. She reached in with decisive movements, pulling forth her book and laying it open in her lap as she cast the backpack aside as well.

She flipped paged idly, as if she were sitting at home with a cup of tea and a good book instead of bleeding out in the middle of the forest. Her eyes scanned the page, sharp and intelligent despite the still-dilated pupils and the blur at the edges of her vision. She could barely see Wilson out of her peripherals, and she let the sight of him ground her as she looked for what she needed.

He wrung his hands nervously as she thumbed calmly through her book. After a moment, she looked up at him. “I need you to do something for me, Wilson,” she said, her voice measured as she turned the book towards him.

He rounded the camp fire slowly, unsure whether or not it was okay for him to approach her and her book. After all this time out there, how closely she guarded it, he was perhaps a little hesitant to. But she was looking up at him expectantly, and he knelt down by her, looking to her once more for confirmation before he looked down at the book.

It was entirely hand written, everything from the header to the body to the illustrations peppered across the two pages she displayed for him. So he’d been right! She’d written everything in this book on her own! It was entirely hand-crafted, from the contents to the bindings, and he wondered how she’d learned such impeccable craftsmanship.

But what he seemed to be wrong about, however, was the contents. He’d thought this book had been some kind of scientific journal, not unlike the ones he kept at home for recording his experiments and inventions. They were full of scribbled handwritten entries and illustrations and diagrams, all like her book.

The only difference was that hers seemed to be a cook book.

Indeed, the page seemed to be a recipe of sorts – but not for any foodstuffs that Wilson had ever seen. The ingredients were peculiar, at best: a single nut from a birch tree, ashes from a spent fire, the tanned skin of a mole…?

“What is this?” he asked, gently taking the book from her lap as she tried not to drip on it.

“It’s a spell. I’m a witch,” she said solidly. “I know you think it’s childish, or make believe, but please–”  

“A – I’m sorry, a witch? Like, Double Double, Toil and Trouble, broomsticks and black cauldrons? A witch? Winnie that’s–”

“Wilson,” she cut across him. “Please. I need your help to put it together.”

He looked down at her for a moment, then to her arm, torn and bloody and leaving a small puddle on the ground below her. He close the book with a little bang and tucked it beneath his arm before frowning and removing his old, worn leather belt. He moved to her, fastening it on her upper arm like a tourniquet, before nodding.

He thought this terribly silly, but it was clear it meant a lot to her that he do this. He needed to leave their camp, anyway, to search for something, anything that might stem the flow, that might help her heal. He remembered he honey poultice she’d made, the strange mix of powders she’d added to the bandage before dressing his own wounds when the tentacles had caught him. He remembered how fast it had healed. He might not have known her scientific reasoning behind that little concoction, or the properties behind its healing value, but he knew that it worked.

He still thought magic no more than smoke and mirrors as the gullible general public would believe anything, but there was the chance that Winnie was right about whatever strange brew she intended to make. She’d been right about the creature, after all, even if he hadn’t seen it.

So it was up to him, now, to fetch her the things she needed.

“I’ll be back before sundown.”


	11. Toil and Trouble

Wilson took nothing but one emptied back pack, the axe, and a handful of berries, and disappeared into the forest, leaving Winnie behind at the obelisks. He hated to, knowing that she was badly injured and wouldn’t be able to defend herself if something were to happen, but he didn’t think he could bring her with him, either, not in the delirious, half-shocked state she was in now.

He shook his head, trying to put it from his thoughts. He needed to concentrate on finding the things she asked for – and a few extras on his list, as well – and make it back to her before sundown. He didn’t have the slightest clue how something as silly as some useless brew would help her, but she seemed to certain, so doubtless that whatever she had in mind would work the way she intended it to. He hoped, for her sake, she was correct.

Wilson gripped his axe, swallowing thickly as he approached the spiders’ nest. They were nocturnal, but he knew that if he stepped one foot on the webbing that covered the ground, they would swarm him, hissing and spitting and biting as they tried to drag him back to the nest. They were vicious things that would devour whatever they could get their sticky claws on.

He had to be smart about this.

Wilson took a tentative step forward, bracing himself for the inevitable.

The moment he stepped onto the webbing, the nest shuddered, and three spiders climbed their way out, hissing in anger at the intruder as they started to crawl down towards him.

He had to be quick; he tried to step back out of the web trap, but the bottom of his foot was stuck fast to it. He tugged and struggled as he watched the spiders move effortlessly across the webbing; they crawled towards him across the trap, and he grit his teeth, fearful as they drew closer. Wilson gripped the axe, swinging it once as the nearest spider drew closer. He managed to knock it back, but he could hear more hissing from inside the nest. They were aggravated, willing to swarm on the nearest living creature – which just so happened to be him.

He wasn’t sure if a single spider gland was worth this. That was all he needed! A spider gland mixed with a little ash was all it would take to make some healing salve for Winnie. Even if it didn’t do much, it was still something, and it still might be enough to stop the bleeding. He hoped she was okay, but right now he needed to focus on making sure that he made it back to their little makeshift camp alive. He swung again, chopping the legs clean off of one spider. It twitched and shuddered on the ground at his feet before going still, only to be joined by its brothers.

He fought against the sticky webbing the whole time, trying to free his foot as they swarmed around him. At last he came free with one particularly hard jerk backwards. He stumbled, swinging blindly as he tried to fend off the spiders and find his balance all at once. He gasped feeling his axe sink into something with a nasty squelch. He wrestled it from the top of the spider, watching as it fell lifeless. Finally there was once again grass beneath his feet, and he moved freely, backing away from the advancing spiders. He swung once, twice, as the beasts leaped at him, and laid them dead before him. He was getting rather good at this, he thought with pride as he fought them off. He just hoped one of them still had a viable gland he could use.

He searched the corpses thoroughly despite the buzz of urgency in the back of his chest, urging him to move faster. He promised her he’d be back by sundown and he intended to be, but he intended to return with a spider gland.

He was unsure what he would do if this stop, out of the way of everything else he’d needed, proved fruitless. He’d wasted quite a bit of time here, fighting off the scores of spiders that had crawled from the disturbed nest, and if there wasn’t a gland to be found…

The first spider had little to offer aside from silk that could be salvaged from the corpse. Most of the others were the same. There was very little in the way of meat, however disgusting the meat was from the monsters out here, and by the time he’d reached the last corpse – the one that he’d chopped the legs off of, still lying quietly on the web trap where he’d felled it – he’d resigned himself to the fact that this had been a wasted effort.

He used his axe to crack open the last spider like a coconut. He wasn’t expecting much: maybe some spent silk, or a gland too damaged to use. But a wave of relief poured through him when he saw the healthy pink of the organ. With some effort, he pulled it from the corpse, wrapping it in flat grasses and stuffing it into the backpack before going on his way.

It was an absolute blessing and, were Wilson inclined to believe in such things, he may say a miracle. The very last spider, laid dead and mutilated, was the only one in the east with an intact gland. He packed it away carefully before pulling her book from the backpack, flipping to the page she’s shown him. There were glances of other entries as he flipped through, the contents no less curious than the task itself. He caught glimpses of sacred things: scribbling and rituals, anecdotes about everything from herbs to demons to precious stones. It was almost too much for the scientist to take in all at once. She truly, honestly believed these ramblings of a mad woman were anything comparable to science, to proven fact and careful experiments that enlightened mankind to the wonders of the universe in a way that her overactive imagination never could even dream to.

And yet, even with the spider gland in tow, he felt the need to continue on her ridiculous quest. What was it he needed again?

* * *

Winnie sat by the campfire, unmoving. The blood had dried down her arm, caking between her fingers. Her arm hurt. The tourniquet was tight. She couldn’t really feel her fingers, but she supposed it was for the best – she couldn’t feel the wound, either. It was still bleeding, but very, very slowly, and she was grateful that Wilson had thought to stem the flow before he’d left. She’d only intended to wrap the wound.

She felt very… odd. Not good, that was for certain, but she’d lost a remarkable amount of blood during the last few hours. She was hungry – they’d not collected nearly enough food the previous night, and she was sure it would be several hours more before she had the strength to go out and forage, even after Wilson helped her with her little brew.

She looked up at the sky, feeling warm and sleepy underneath the sun, high in the sky. Six hours, perhaps? That was the best guess she could take on how long he’d been gone. Wilson had left early in the morning, and it was almost evening now. He promised that he’d be back before sundown. She took a deep breath, humming softly to herself.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble, Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble. The tune was stuck in her head. She had always thought the old passage to be silly and stereotypical, but it seemed rather relevant now.

Even though she didn’t exactly have a cauldron. She missed her cauldron dreadfully, and wished she’d had the mind to grab it from her home as it had gone up in flames. She wished she’d had the mind to drag it through town in the dead of night with her, and to haul it over the edge of the docks as she jumped.

She supposed that was a little unrealistic, though.

She couldn’t imagine what Wilson must have thought of her. Childish, foolish, just plain delusional – perhaps a combination of all three! She sighed heavily, tipping her head forward. She laid her weight back on her good arm as her eyelids fluttered closed, feeling the simple heat and the stiff feeling in her fingers.

She picked her head up at the sound of crunching footsteps. Wilson’s form wobbled at the edges, and she could see the toll the heat was taking on him as he neared their little camp again. “Ah,” she said, once he was within ear shot again. “Salvation at last! Please tell me you managed to find the things I need…”

“Indeed, miss Winnie, and then some!” he gave her a reassuring grin through a sheen of sweat. He kneeled down by the fireside, shrugging off the backpack as he began to empty the contents. He fished out her book first of all, handing it to her delicately. “I believe this is yours!”

She took it from him carefully, laying it in her lap and smoothing out the pages as she turned to the right page. It took her a moment to focus on the page, she looked up to him. “The spell, Wilson.”

“Right! Of course!” he said, emptying the rest of the backpack. Contained inside were the various ingredients that she’d requested. A nut from a birch tree, a handful of daisies, the stinger of a bee – he’d had to get that the old fashioned way; subsequently, they had more than they needed, now – white roots, water from the nearest pond, and a moleskin.

Well, actually, he pulled out the whole mole. He hadn’t had the time to hunt for parts. And besides, he’d reasoned, shoving the thing into the backpack earlier, waste not want not.

“And,” he said, “just in case this doesn’t go as planned – not saying that it won’t, of course, but just in case! I brought this.” He pulled out the gland carefully wrapped in the flat grass leaves he’d harvested on his way. “I can make salve with this. It – it might help your arm.”

She looked at the gland for a long moment before looking up at him.

“I know you don’t think much of this,” she said, splaying a hand across the page, “but I know it will work. I need you to, as well. Please. If you don’t trust me, it may not work right.”

“I do trust you, Winnie–”

“Do you?”

This gave him pause. No, not really. He trusted her, of course, to not murder him in his sleep, or feed him a poisoned carrot – although this morning was cutting it awfully close. He trusted that she would work with him towards the common goal of not dying out here. But he didn’t trust her wild beliefs. Not with the wooden platform thing, not with the magic, not with the spells and the nonsense and the make believe.

But he did trust her.

And he trusted her judgment.

He nodded once, decisively, and rummaged through the backpack once more. “I brought you something else!” he tried to sound cheerful, even as the coppery smell of blood began to get to him in the heat. A bowl, crudely shaped and shimmering in gold. It was entirely made of gold, it seemed, and Winnie took it from his hands with a tentative hold, examining it with a curious look. It was uneven and clearly hand made in a rush.

He wasn’t sure what caliber of tools she was used to working with – or if she even used a cauldron. Did witches really use cauldrons? He’d never had to consider it before. But he found himself holding his breath as she examined the poorly made bowl.

She examined it, noting the dings and dents in the uneven shape that he’d hammered a bit too hard as he’d walked, nearly tripping over his own feet as he concentrated deeply on the little bowl. “It—it’s a prototype, of course…” he added, hastily, as she looked it over.

Then, much to his surprise, she grinned. It was a wide, beaming look that sapped all the fatigue from her features as she looked up at him. It was as if the simple little bowl had reinvigorated her more than any healing salve could.

Which was nothing to say for the gaping wounds in her arm, which were still very much there.

She needed medical attention, is what he was getting at.

He cleared his throat, and held his hand out for the bowl, fastening it over the fire before lighting the logs beneath ablaze. “Alright! First order of business, the, uhm…”

“The water, Wilson,” she reminded him politely.

“Ah! Right, of course. Can’t brew anything in a dry bowl. Is this considered brewing? I don’t do this very often. Or… at all, actually.” He muttered, only half aware of his words as he tried to follow the measurements in her little recipe book.

“I gathered.” She gave a little chuckle.

Wilson was readily willing to admit it. And he kept admitting it, over and over, as Winnie coached him through the preparation of his first spell. He’d never done anything like this. He was a man of science, so why would he have? None of this had any bearing on a scientific mind, but Winnie reassured him that it wasn’t the science behind it that mattered.

“Are you brewing magic to heal me, Wilson Higgsbury?” she’d asked him quietly, as the sun began setting.

He added the ground up roots and daisies, carefully sprinkling the clumpy, wet mixture into the boiling water brew. “I intend for this to help you, yes.” He said, skirting around her words.

She smiled. “Then it will. You’ll see.”

He could only shake his head and stir the brew. She was very particular about that, as well! He’d never thought much of it, and certainly never met anyone else who had, but she was adamant that he only stir in a clockwise motion.

‘Sunwise,’ she’d called it. What an odd notion.

Before long, the brew began to bubble and boil, a pleasant blue color and smelling faintly like mint. That was peculiar. He didn’t remember adding any mint. He looked to her for some sort of reassuring that this wasn’t some tragic misstep, and she only nodded, humming faintly. She looked dreadfully pale in the low light, and tired. He frowned slightly, turning his attention back towards the minty science experiment gone awry before he couldn’t contain the question any longer.

“You… saw something, after eating that mushroom,” he prodded gently. He’d since cleaned the mole he’d caught, separating the offal from the meat from the skins. He took one strip of skin and began to steep it in the strange tea. She’d assured him that it was okay if they didn’t have time to tan the skins first. This would do in a pinch – something he struggled to understand.

“I did.”

“May I ask what, exactly?”

She was silent for a moment. “I’m… not sure. I think it was a shadow.”

“Pardon?”

“Shadow incarnate,” she began to explain, her voice quiet. “I don’t know what they are, but I saw them when we opened the door, too. I… suppose you can’t see them, can you?”

“Certainly not.”

She hummed in thought. “I don’t know why. I’ve never encountered this kind of magic, before, Wilson, it’s all very new, but I think… I think I have some sort of grasp on the craft, I’m closer to the veil between worlds—Oh, please, I don’t mean anything rude by it!” she said quickly, as she saw the look on his face. “I mean – you don’t even believe in magic! You have no reason to be able to see these things because you’re so far removed from them! I think–”

“I think you’ve lost quite a bit of blood,” he said, and lifted her chin, examining her, “And if your eyes are any indication, still heavily under the influence of that blasted mushroom. I don’t think you’re in any position to be making any sort of deductions, miss Winnie,” he said lightly, steeping another piece of skin as he wrapped the first around her arm.

It stung something awful, the stuff seeping into her wounds as the minty mixture

She shut her mouth rather quickly. He still wasn’t having any of it, no matter how badly she felt he needed to understand this. It was another feeling that tugged at her stomach, that set her heart aflame and buzzed around in her mind like dozens of angry hornet. It was something she just knew, but couldn’t quite articulate why. She held her injured arm out for him, letting him dress her wounds and pinning the skins in place with the bee stingers. With her free hand, she reached into her blouse, pulling forth the little pendulum again.

She stared at it for a long moment, watching as it swam about in her unsteady vision.

“Wilson,” she said softly, still watching the movement as he pinned the third and final dressing.

“Hmm?”

She asked it again, just to be sure, and watched as the pendulum swung back and forth, reflecting the firelight that glowed before the pair as night began to fall around them. It cast a brilliant sparkling glow through the little crystal that was shattered, light falling upon every surface as it reflected the warmth.

“I can’t explain how, but… I think we’re doing something right.”


	12. The Obelisks

Wilson watched her carefully through the rest of the evening and overnight, after he’d removed her tourniquet and she’d laid down to sleep. He himself remained awake through the night as he was accustomed to doing, watching the steady rise and fall of her shoulders as he blinked wearily in the enduring fire light. After he’d applied the steeped strips of moleskin to her wounds, she drank the remaining liquid, and he’d used the bowl to mix the healing salve. He much preferred the salve to whatever nonsense Winnie had had him concoct; but he couldn’t help but notice, perhaps with some irritability, that her wounds had indeed stopped bleeding. The bandages still remained pinned securely to her arm, and she’d since cleaned up, scrubbing the dried blood from her arm as best she could. There was still quite a bit, and their camp was settled right in a small puddle of it from earlier, but he did his best to ignore this. Come morning, they would make the journey back to their original camp, providing she was well enough to.

He didn’t know how much longer they could stay here. He’d cooked up the bits of meat he’d managed to return with. Most of it was from the spiders, which was bitter and sinewy, and while it would do in a pinch, not a sustainable food source. He let her have the edibles from the mole he’d caught, not wanting her to suffer any of the negative effects of eating the monster meat. He was much more fit in that respect, and could stomach it better than she would have been able to.

He kept the fire roaring through the night, throwing in handfuls of dry grass every so often as he prodded at the embers.

It was almost incomprehensible to him, the girl’s odd way of thinking. She truly believed that those ingredients she’d had him gather had any medicinal value. He knew herbalism was a widely practiced medicine, and in most ways it had its merits. Some plants contained natural chemicals and drugs that affected the human body in the same way medicines might. It was only science, after all! But the things he’s brought back to their little makeshift camp last night were ludicrous! White roots? Never had he heard of such a thing. It didn’t even specify a species. The idea was almost laughable.

He looked over at the girl, sleeping quietly across the fire from him.

Well. Perhaps not laughable.

Wilson sighed, spying the tall form of the obelisks looming just beyond the darkness. He stared hard at them with a little frown. So much of this just didn’t make sense to him. The odd, impassable structures, Winnie’s blind faith in her own imagination - and the apparent effects it had! He refused to sully his morals by even entertaining the idea that the ludicrous nonsense that had happened in the last few days could really be magic. Logic and reason were some of the last great things Wilson had left on this bloody island, and he wasn’t about to abandon them for the strange girl he’d found rooting through his camp fire three months back. He knew, as a scientist, that even the world’s most confounding mysteries has a reasonable scientific explanation behind them. Things that the human race had once considered magic and witchcraft and sorcery - all the very same things Winnie was so fond of going on about - were no more than poorly understood laws of physics or simple chemistry. Concepts that he’d learned at a young age were once considered the height of scientific knowledge. Surely, this was no different.

Whatever terrible beast Winnie had seen, whatever had injured her, was just another animal, regardless of whether or not Winnie thought it to be ‘shadow incarnate’, whatever that was supposed to mean. It was simple and logical, and Wilson closed his eyes for a few moments, listening to the steady crackle of the fire as the night wore on.

The young witch rose before the sun did. She seemed to be feeling a considerable bit better now that she’d rested. She lifted herself with her good arm, sitting upright and brushing her bangs from her eyes a bit groggily before she checked her dressings once more.

“Everything in order?” he asked quietly.

She seemed surprised by his voice in the dim firelight. She hadn’t expected him to be awake; she didn’t exactly know her new travelling companion was an insomniac. “You’re awake!” she squeaked.

“I’m always awake,” he chuckled.

“That can’t be healthy.”

“Probably not. But it gives me more hours in the day to ponder things like survival, and impossible obelisks.”

Winnie looked over her shoulder to the tall black rocks that still loomed solidly over them. She sighed, laying a hand over the bandages as she looked down at the covered wound.

Wilson could tell that something was still bothering her about the incident. Certainly it wasn’t her odd concoction, for it seemed to have at the very least stopped the bleeding. Besides, he was fairly certain that Winnie was too lost a cause to really admit the lunacy behind her make-believe magic, anyway. She believed it too fully, too thoughtlessly. So if not the oddity of her remedy, then what?

He thought it prudent to inquire.

“Something plaguing the mind, miss Winnie?” he asked.

She was quiet for a long moment, and very slowly, undid one of her bandages.

The scientist felt his stomach flip. He would very much prefer not for her to take those off. He was far from squeamish, having treated his own wounds over time, but he could still hardly say he wanted to see her wounds in the low light.

“I’m afraid I may have underestimated that creature,” she said softly. It was an unsettling sound to her voice, coupled with her worrisome words.

He shifted, getting up from his spot in the grass and moving towards her, peering over her shoulder as he braced himself from the gruesome wound.

Oh.

“What in the name of Tesla?” he breathed, frowning deeply at her arm. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen. He may not have been a medical doctor, but he was absolutely certain that a wound – even a festering wound – should not have been doing _this_.

Of course, it was important to note that her wound was, in fact, not infected. Much to his initial surprise, the skin was almost smooth, the gaping holes having healed over with unnatural speed, not unlike the effects of the honey poultice after the tentacle spike had gouged into his leg. Her wound was almost completely healed, true, but he couldn’t help but notice that the area surrounding the puncture marks.

There were three areas, each one indicating the placement of a previous injury. The skin was discolored, and for a moment he thought perhaps it was a trick of the fire light, but she seemed to see it too – the way her skin was darker, veins of black emanating from each injury like rays snaking across her arm.

“What… _is_ that?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

How would he describe this new development? Frightening, to say the least. It looked like her arm was experiencing the early stages of decay, except the healing was evident and she, apparently, experienced no pain or nerve damage. It was an unbelievable ailment to say the least.

Quite a bit about this girl was clouded in an air of unbelievability, he thought bitterly. The more he tried to be logical regarding her and her oddities, the harder it became. It was wholly frustrating, that the first and only person he’d met out here in how many months or years was so unapologetically daft. And worse, that her bizarre brand of delusions seemed to hold merit out here. He was still reluctant to admit it, of course. Stranded in the middle of the woods or not, he had no intention of submitting to such fanciful ideas.

He hummed thoughtfully, examining her arm carefully. “Ah…” He spoke up after a moment, laying her hand back in her lap. “How attached are you, exactly, to this arm?” he asked lightly.

She gave him a startled look. “Rather attached, I would say!” she said, clutching it away from him. “Let’s keep the axe to cutting wood, if you please! Besides…” She seemed to relax a little bit. “I don’t believe it’s anything dangerous. I think it’s a scar.” She touched it gently; painless.  

“A scar? I’ve never seen a scar do that.”

“It must have something to do with that shadow creature.”

Wilson sighed as the sun rose over the horizon. “Well, as long as you’re sure you’re okay,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. Now in the broad daylight he could see the obelisks clearly, their looming shape no longer threatening in the near distance.

Winnie stood with him, packing their things and kicking dirt over the fire; it sputtered, dying beneath the smothering dust, and she moved to join Wilson. Her head still ached terribly. The potion, while having healed her greatly, did very little for the intoxication she’d suffered from the mushroom, and the effects still hadn’t faded away. The morning light was harsh on her eyes - still dilated greatly, Wilson noted, as he watched her come to join him.

“Still no luck, huh?” she asked, looking up at them.

“Sadly, no. I’ve not the slightest how a structure like this can hold up against the both of our work… not even a scratch. It’s uncanny,” he muttered to her, frowning deeply.

“I know,” she breathed, largely misunderstanding his turn of phrase. “I can’t imagine what kind of stone…” she mused, and hummed, reaching a hand out to the obelisk they’d worked tirelessly at. She gasped, recoiling as a creature emerged from the point towering above them, and though Wilson had come to expect this kind of behavior from her by now, he couldn’t deny that it worried him some. There was no telling what she’d seen – and if it was going to attack her, or him, or both of them.

He braced himself.

Winnie flinched back as she watched the shadows rise – first from one obelisk, then from them all, slithering upwards into the sky before disappearing into thin air. As the shadows fled, Wilson stumbled back, the ground trembling slightly as the tall obsidian points receded into the ground.

He watched in shock as she lowered the obelisks somehow. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how, but there she was, standing but a few inches from the now nearly invisible points of the towers that just barely stuck out of the ground. Somehow she’d touched them and they’d lowered like a door rather than the semi-permanent structures they were. It boggled his mind, and he couldn’t bring himself to do anything for quite a few moments, looking over at her with something stuck firmly between shock and deep offense on his features.

This surpassed all immediate logic, and he felt it would take quite some time before he was able to come up with a viable explanation as to how this had been done. Some bizarre sleight of hand, he was fairly certain, but even that was up in the air in the face of all he knew thus far about the obelisks.

Winnie blinked, realizing the shock of fear that had quickened her heart as she’d watched the shadows dissipate still lingered in her chest. She took a breath, letting out a sigh of relief as she let her stance relax greatly. “I… suppose that takes care of the obelisks. Somehow…”

She sounded very uncertain of it herself, and that only made it all the odder. How could she not know what she’d done? It certainly conflicted with every theory and hypothesis he’d constructed so far. But regardless of his confusion, he followed Winnie over the low-rising tips of obsidian. They were easy to pass now, and when he stepped onto the earth on the other side, he felt no change. Not even past the second set was there any sort of fundamental change. Just more woodlands.

He watched Winnie carefully, trying to keep up with her as she wove between trees, sometimes sprinting off to pick flowers or gather berries or carrots. He was grateful for that, at least, as his stomach growled loudly around midday. He was dreadfully hungry after only having the few provisions they’d managed since making the trek up to the obelisks.

As the day wore on, Winnie seemed to be feeling better. She had an easier time focusing her vision, and every so often he caught her touching gently at the strange scars she’d earned. She seemed unconcerned, if not curious, and by the time he’d built another fire, and she’d come back with another small bounty, she was her old, incredible exuberant self.

She came trotting back to the little camp past the obelisks, she grinning and looking like she’d just gotten the best news of her life. As she shucked her backpack, unpacking the things she’d gathered to present to Wilson, she started talking, her words going a mile a minute as he tried to keep up. “—I mean I know you have your reservations and I don’t blame you, it makes perfect sense, but I just knew crossing the obelisks was a good idea, I just knew it! I know I said it before with the platform, but this time, I was actually right! Ha! Look, look at what I found out there, this is incredible!” She beamed, reaching to the bottom of the backpack to pull forth two objects. “One box thing, for the greatest inventor on the island–”

“The only inventor on the island, miss.”

“—And,” she grinned, reaching in once more, pulling forth another gem made into a crude looking necklace. “Ta-da!” She presented it, showing it off. This one looked much the same as the one she already wore, with the exception of the stone set in the pendant. Rather than the roughly diamond-shaped red stone that was set in her necklace, this new stone was orange and rounded, its facets rougher and cruder than its sibling.

“Ah. A, uh, another necklace!” He sounded wholly unimpressed.

“No, no, no, look!” She said, hastily removing the red stone pendant from around her neck, draping the chain around his neck, leaving him with the red pendant for safekeeping. He adjusted it without much thought, tucking the chain under the collar of his shirt and the pendant into his vest as he watched her with some interest. She wore the orange pendant, and looked hastily around, spying a carrot peeking out of the ground a few feet away. She absolutely lit up, begging his attention as she lifted one hand towards the half-buried carrot.

And without another moment’s hesitation, the carrot burst from the earth, hovering neatly in the air before placing itself into the pile of foodstuffs, which was laying neatly in front of Wilson.

The scientist may as well have watched the very fabric of reality unravelling before him. He may have been watching the world ending, the unspeakable taking place before him. Someone may as well have told him that Einstein was a lie and Tesla had falsified every last bit of scientific data he’d ever produced.

He watched as the carrot came to settle in the backpack, and looked up at Winnie with a remarkably disturbed look. Her enthusiasm died quickly, and she tucked her pendant inside of her blouse as well, so that both gems were hidden neatly beneath their shirts. “Right. Sorry,” she muttered.

Even if she felt dejected, she was still grateful. She could tell Wilson didn’t like or really appreciate her magic, but he knew now, and was so far the only person to know of her craft outside of her coven who hadn’t immediately tried to have her exorcised or burnt at the stake.

She sighed deeply and sat down with him, hands folded in her lap and haphazard bangs obscuring her eyes as she looked down, plucking blades of grass from the ground at her side. Nimble fingers wove the blades together, quiet for a moment. She was surprised at how easily her mood had flipped, for nothing but the blatant disapproval of someone who, for all intents and purposes, was a complete stranger.

“Do you think they were right?” she asked quietly, still not looking up from her pointless work. She wasn’t one to idle, here, to weave for the sake of weaving. If she wanted to keep her hands busy she would usually begin to weave another backpack, or a straw roll for one of them to sleep in, but here she was just weaving useless bits of grass together.

He looked curiously at her. “Who?” He couldn’t think who she could possibly be referring to. He hadn’t met anyone else on the island besides her.

“Do you really think this place is because of the things we do? Magic and science, and the Gods are angry. So they put us here.”

He was quiet for a long moment. He’d wondered the same thing, on the harder nights where he remained huddled by the fire, juggling hypothermia and starvation in the dead of winter. He’d wondered the same thing, when a particularly violent electrical storm had struck the first science machine he’d built, turning it to no more than a skeletal framework of burnt wood. He’d wondered the same thing, the first time the darkness had attacked him, a mysterious beast that lurked in shadows and ripped through him mercilessly.

He’d never been one to put much stock in religious faith. He’d even shied away from church in the years before moving away from his family. He’d abandoned the faith he was raised on and never once, back home, felt a twinge of regret. But he knew, logically, there were things Science wouldn’t be able to answer. Greater mysteries that were just beyond his grasp, mysteries that he had no way of proving or disproving.

It was something he hated to say, but he was to be honest with Winnie.

“I don’t know,” he said.

She blinked at him, her hand reaching beneath the collar of her blouse, pulling forth the pendulum. She remained perfectly still, watching it carefully.

It was completely still.

Winnie sighed, tucking it away again.

Wilson thought for a moment, part of him berating himself for even thinking to offer. “I… I’d like for us to try something, if you… don’t mind a little… collaboration.”


	13. Darkness

It was a combined effort. He’d taken the little box thing she’d found - as well as the other things gathered during their stay there - and built the bizarre machine atop the wooden platform as he had before. He knew that alone wasn’t enough to get them home, so once he was finished putting the machine together, he let her take a look at it.

It made her very uncomfortable, to examine such a sinister piece of old magic. Maxwell had crafted it well, but his magic was familiar. The Elder Futhark alphabet was taught in many covens, and she had many pages in her book of shadows transcribed in the old runic language. It came fairly naturally to her, and she often used the runes in her sigils and in the hilt of the last wand she’d built during her stay here. Unfortunately, that had snapped in two and damaged the crystal she’d mounted at the tip, and she’d yet to find the suitable materials for a replacement, but the runes had been easy enough to carve into the wood.

She took a piece of flint that had been sharpened against one of the larger boulders down by the beefalo territory, and began to carve her work into the wooden platform. He might not have understood whatever odd, ancient language she did, but she seemed to work with certainty, and that itself was a reassurance. He had, at least, resigned himself to the fact that even if he didn’t understand what she was doing, she certainly did. She’d made that much apparent through her strange concoction and the honey poultice used on multiple occasions for everything from scratches and scrapes to gaping wounds. Thus far they both still had all their limbs, so he supposed she must work pretty well with the components these woods had to offer.

For most of the afternoon, she remained hunched over the wooden platform, hilariously contorted to reach between the mechanical parts of the strange device as she scraped away at the painted carvings in the wood. With every completed symbol, she whispered something unintelligible under her breath. Wilson very nearly feared she was experiencing some form of heat stroke – she was making no sense! But every time he went up to her, asking her if she would fancy a break, or something to eat, she waved him away, muttering something in tongues as she worked, barely even looking up from her work. It worried him greatly, and if it weren’t for the fact that she had claimed this as her trade, he would have thought her still disturbed from the hallucinogenic mushroom.

Still, it was unnerving. Even if he himself didn’t subscribe to the particular faith in magic that she did, he couldn’t help but remember some of the bizarre stories he’d heard about people like her. Things he’d always dismissed as sensationalist media and slow news days. There was no such thing as magic, no such thing as witches, he’d tell himself, and go back to his work bench. And yet, here she was, working diligently until—

“Ack!”

He looked up sharply to find her holding a bloodied piece of flint.

“What happened? Did you have a slip? Oh, goodness, how unfortunate…” he muttered, concerned as he moved to examine it. Surely it couldn’t be any worse than the bite, but it always paid to make sure.

Winnie stood with a grin, holding the flint in one hand, the other split across the palm. The moment he saw it, it sent a shiver up his spine, and he clenched his left hand at his side, the long white scar across his palm eerily similar to the cut she’d made on her right hand.

“Ta-da! All done! That took… a lot longer than I thought it was going to,” she muttered, looking down at the cut she’d sliced into her palm. Wilson moved without another word, wrapping her palm tightly. They’d come slightly more prepared this time, and her honey poultice was tried and true since the first time she’d made it.

“There,” he said curtly, tying it securely. “What on earth was that for?”

“To power it,” she buzzed, feeling wild and alive despite the bit of blood loss. “There’s magic in my blood, Wilson, there’s magic in every witch. It’s how we work our craft. It’s the very energy we put out into the universe! And now that thing,” she said, gesturing back at the machine, “is infused with the same energy I am!”

She seemed so incredibly enthused; it was almost convincing. He might have even given it serious thought had he not had a similar scar on his palm, where Maxwell had told him to give blood to the machine, something that felt like eons ago. And certainly, he was no witch! The furthest thing from it, actually. He was a scientist! Nevermind the fact that he’d successfully brewed a spell from Winnie’s spooky little cookbook, of course. Witchcraft or not, that simply didn’t count.

“Well that’s all fine and good, but exactly what did this achieve?” he asked, lifting her hand slightly in question.

She looked down at it. “I tried to reprogram it. All magical items are charged, or programmed, for a specific purpose. If the magic here works the same way as my magic, reprogramming it with my magic should bring us home!” she beamed.

“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” he said flatly, then sighed, “but it makes about as much sense as anything else on this blasted island.” He gave her a tired smile and gathered their things up from the nearby resting spot they’d settled in. He gestured to the machine. “After you, miss Winnie!” He offered.

She smiled back up at him, and stepped up to the activated platform. He followed her, making sure he had a good grip on the backpack he wore, hoping against hope that somehow, the girl’s crackpot idea would work.

She looked down at the platform, surveying her work. It had taken the whole afternoon and a better part of the evening to fix the platform, but she was confident in her craft. She was no two-bit witch, after all. She was raised into the most prestigious coven of her state. Her sisters had taught her well, and she knew more than even her book of shadows let on, which was filled from cover to cover with spells she used regularly, tips and ideas and scrawlings taught to her by the older witches in the coven.

She looked down at the wooden platform as Wilson joined her, and her heart stopped dead in her chest.

There was nothing wrong with her work, that much she was certain of, but she had been very meticulous about where she had painted the old wooden thing with her own blood. It was rather precious to her, after all, even more so in her craft. Waste not, want not, and besides – she had very little idea of where such a powerful magical artifact would deposit them on their journey home.

But as she looked now, mere moments after she’d completed the reprogramming with her own fresh, red blood, she knew something was wrong. The smears she’d painted onto the platform, around the runes, were no longer a glistening red. They were dull and dry, dark brown as if they’d been there for years.

It hit her a moment too late, as Wilson reached for the switch to send them through the machine. The magic in her blood hadn’t reprogrammed the platform. It had been absorbed into it. Whatever this thing was that they were standing in front of, had devoured the magic in her blood within the few measly moments it took for Wilson to wrap her hand and gather their belongings.

It had turned her new blood to little more than old rust. She was suddenly very keen on getting away from the platform, but by the time she’d turned to Wilson, his hand was already on the switch.

“No, don’t–!” she started, ignoring the twinge in her palm as she reached for him.

There was a thunk.

Winnie gasped as the shadows manifested around them – the same routine they’d both grown disconcertingly used to. But no matter how fast she tried to drag him away from the platform, the ethereal creatures of shadow were faster. They snatched the pair up, dragging them down once more.

A single, panicked shriek cut through the air as the pair disappeared from the world, and just like that, everything was dark.

* * *

Everything was dark.

That was the first thing that Winnie noticed when she woke. She sat upright in a bolt, remembering what Wilson had told her about the creatures that lurked out there. “Wilson? Wils–”

“Take it easy. I’m right here,” he said, from the edge of the light. There was a small flare from one of the several campfires that stood between them and total darkness, and he came into better view. “What happened?”

“It didn’t work!”

“I gathered that much, Winnie. I mean, in your terms, why didn’t it work?”

She clutched her cloak closer around her shoulders. “Something was wrong…”

“Again, I’m aware.”

“No,” she said, looking up at him, eyes wide in the darkness. “Something was wrong with the platform. I fixed it, and when we went to leave, I saw something weird had happened. The blood I’d used, just a few seconds prior, was all dried and used up. Like it drank the magic right from it…”

Well, that was a disconcerting notion. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to hear that. Even if magic was a bunch of hullabaloo, anything that fed from blood was something high on his list of creatures he didn’t want to cross.

“And now we’re here.” He sighed, stoking one of the fires as Winnie took to another. “Brilliant.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, frowning into the slowly dying fire at her feet, tossing a handful of dried grass in to fuel it. “Those platforms clearly won’t bring us home. I’m not sure why I keep trying. Whatever strange feeling I keep getting about them, it’s obviously nothing worth heeding.”

“Don’t say that. You’ve done a fantastic job of testing your hypothesis. Even if it’s not the outcome you expected, you’re still remaining diligent. And might I remind you, this time was my fault, I believe. Collaboration or no, it seems the wooden things are a fruitless venture in our attempts to return home.” He nodded, his sure air remarkably reassuring for the girl. He was logical – even in the face of a massive failure like this, he was still calculating their advantages, their losses, their next move. “For now, miss Winnie, the only thing we need to worry about is keeping the darkness at bay.”

They were lucky. Not once in the impossible amount of time Wilson had been stuck out in the woods like this had he stumbled across anything quite like this. It was a ring of fire pits, each one roaring by the time they’d awoken. He would admit, he was a bit fearful considering whose campfires these might be – if they were to return any time soon, the poorly prepared Wilson and Winnie might find themselves on the losing end of a confrontation. But right now, with so few resources and the nighttime shrouding the world apart from that which was visible to them within their little ring of safety, they had nothing.

They decided to wait out the night.

Wilson remained vigilant, he and Winnie dividing up their available fuel to keep two of the fires burning. He frowned down at the handful of grass he held, taken from a quickly dwindling pile in between the two fires. The radius of light gave them just enough room to work, gathering more grass, logs, and some berries that Winnie was pretty sure, in the dark, weren’t poisonous. But still, the pair couldn’t help but notice that they were quite literally burning through their resources faster than they could hope to gather them. There was only so much available to them in the little space, and as Winnie reaped the last tuft of tall grasses that hadn’t been consumed by the encroaching darkness, they huddled back over the fire together.

“Morning needs to hurry up. I’m not sure how much longer we can keep the fire going,” she said, her voice quiet as she tossed another small handful into the fire, watching the flames hungrily consume it. The glow brightened a bit, enough for her to see the worried look on his face. “What?” she asked worriedly.

“The night’s lasted longer than usual. Even during the winters…” he muttered. “Something’s not right…”

She grimaced, definitely not liking the sound of that. She was unsure what he was hinting at; she had a vague idea, but not wanting to jump to conclusions, she prodded him further. “You think…?”

“I don’t think morning is coming, miss Winnie.”


	14. Eternal Night

“What?” She blinked, hands wringing together as she dropped her last fistful of grass into the fire. Wilson had more, but she had the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t nearly enough “I don’t understand what you mean.”

To be quite frankly, neither did he. But the hours had dragged on, and there wasn’t so much as a peek of sunlight over the horizon. He may not have been able to keep the time exactly, but he’d learned he was a pretty good judge of time out here, and he couldn’t keep ignoring the itching feeling that the sun ought to have been up by then. He shook his head, frowning deeply. “I can’t truthfully say I understand it all that well myself, but if I’m correct, the sun should have been up about a half an hour ago.” He said, grimly, surveying what was left of their supplies. They had a few branches from the trees they’d cut down, and a handful or two remaining of the dried grass - not even enough to make one torch, let alone two. “Winnie,” he spoke slowly, his thoughts elsewhere as he addressed her. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to stave off the darkness for much longer. If that book of yours has any tips on how to stop a night beast, I do suggest you brush up on your reading with what light we have left.” The darkness pickled against the back of his neck as the ring of light shrunk further with every passing, burning second. He tossed the last handful of grass into the fire. It didn’t do much.

Winnie felt a shiver run down her spine at the quiet urgency of his voice. It was the kind of tone one used when doing their best not to panic others. She got the strong impression Wilson had tangled with this odd entity once before. There was a nagging voice in the back of her head, reminding her that he must have encountered the beast once before, swallowed by darkness. He’d survived, hadn’t he? She wondered what their odds were.

She stared down at the worn cover of her book. It had certainly taken a beating since she’d been spirited away to this island. It was flammable, but irreplaceable. She held in her hands too much priceless knowledge to let it go up in flames. She clutched it close, and then put it aside.

“What are you doing?” He asked, a bit confused as she began to undo the clasp around her neck, letting her cloak fall free, bundled up in her arms as she worked by the dying light.

Her cloak was gifted to her by one of her coven sisters. Taken in and taught the craft, she was given the cloak off of her sister’s shoulders. It was a gift she’d always held as one of her most precious possessions.

Crouching carefully over the last of their fire, Winnie took the sharpest piece of flint they had, and began to tear the cloak into strips. She wrapped bits around the branches they’d gathered – wood that was too small to use as firewood and too big to use as kindling, that they’d planned to chop down into more manageable pieces once the morning came. When each was done, she dipped the tips carefully into the flames, watching the fire lick around and catch on her cloak. She handed one to Wilson, lit one aflame for herself, and shoved the rest back into their backpack.

“Torches,” she said shortly. “They won’t last long, but at least we’re not trapped here.”

He nodded once, very seriously. “Before we go…” he said, handing off his torch for a moment. She watched him, carefully keeping the light on him as he moved to the pitch black center of the ring of camp fires, where stood the tall, crooked form of the divining rod. Somehow it always managed to arrive with them. Winnie didn’t quite know what to make of it, other than the fact that it was clearly an important instrument that wouldn’t be wise to leave behind.

He plucked it from its pedestal with some effort, and placed it head-first into the backpack before taking his torch back. “So maybe we don’t have the greatest track record with those wooden things, but if it can bring us anywhere that’s not eternal night, it’s still a small victory for us.” He explained, as they began walking. Wilson didn’t like the idea of leaving the safety of the campfires in the dead of night, but if they didn’t have any kindling the fire pits were useless.

“I don’t know,” Winnie said, gloomily. “Every time we use one of those platforms, it just brings us some place worse.”

“What can be worse than Eternal Night? Think about it – a constant race to keep our supplies up means that gathering food is going to be harder. No sunlight means berries and carrots and the like you bring back are going to be harder to come by. Having no reliable source of light means that we’ll be done for if hounds decide to attack, literally at any time. And that’s not even considering what’ll happen if our lights go out.” He said grimly.

It sent an uncomfortable shiver across her shoulders. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. You keep mentioning this… monster, in the darkness. Did you…?”

He gave a little hum, nodding, the movement barely discernible in the darkness. “Back when I first got here, wherever here is… I didn’t know what was out there. How could I have? But it didn’t seem to care whether I knew or not. It came out of nowhere, Miss Winnie, it truly did. At first, I thought it must have been the darkness itself attacking me. That’s what it certainly felt like. Of course, that’s nonsense.” He waved it off. “Some sort of… remarkably stealthy, nocturnal creature that hunts in the darkness. I have a theory, see, that due to it living exclusively in darkness, it’s eyesight must be so powerful that the light of the campfires – or even light as weak as our torches, here! – cause it a great deal of pain, rendering it unable to attack us so long as there’s a substantial light source!” he said smartly.

“But what is it?”

Wilson fell silent.

“I, uh… haven’t quite figured that out yet. Seeing as how they’re only active in complete darkness.”

“And you’ve never caught one?”

“Clearly not.”

Winnie hummed, and Wilson was grateful for the low light – while not strictly being a scientist herself, she was still picking apart his meager attempt at academia. It wasn’t so easy out in the middle of nowhere, to maintain reasonable academic standing.

Not that he’d had much academic standing to begin with, but Winnie didn’t know that.

He cleared his throat, pressing on.

“But really, the matter at hand doesn’t rely on catching one, so much as understanding it enough to simply avoid it. Whatever the beast out there may be, it’s enough to know it’s patterns and habit, to keep it at bay. For some of the creatures out here, that’s the best any scientist worth his salt can hope for.”

To his relief, she hummed in agreement, remembering the tales he’d told her of the great monstrosities that occasionally plagued his camp: things he’d dubbed the Deerclops, or the Moose Goose - neither of which she had yet encountered, and both of which sounded like fantastically made up beasts out of an old story book.  But after some of the things she’d seen on this island, in the months since she’d arrived, were more than enough to give her inclination to believe him.

She was quite often impressed with Wilson, his stories and his inventions and his wonderful knack for staying alive. She was well aware that he was far more versed in academics and the sciences than she was, even if his way of thinking was a little… eccentric. The one time he’d uprooted and entire berry bush to wear on his head, she’d been tempted to say his eccentricity was veering more towards insanity, but when _she_ was the one that had to fight off an angry pack of spiders after he hid neatly beneath his bizarre hat, she had to admit that his ingenuity hadn’t failed him yet.

She wondered what it would be like, to be of a scientific mind rather than a magical one. Dreadfully difficult, she imagined. She didn’t know what she would do without her magic. 

Probably wear bushes on her head.

She froze, throwing a hand out to catch Wilson’s arm as he kept moving. He staggered to a stop, looking back at her with some concern. “What is it?”

“Do you see that?” she asked, trying to focus her gaze, trying to make sense of the odd shapes she saw in the darkness beyond the safety of their light.

Wilson squinted. “…No?”

She handed him her torch, transfixed by this strange thing in the middle of the blackened woods.

“Wh- Winnie! Be careful!” he hissed, reluctant to follow her. He watched as she neared the edge of the circle, her form disappearing as she ventured further out into the darkness. “Winnie! I strongly suggest you leave whatever it is alone and come back into the light immediately!” there was an urgent stress in his voice, his teeth grit as he spoke. Had he _not_ just finished telling her about the beast that lurked in the shadows and would happily tear her limb from limb if she went too far?

“Wilson, there’s something here!” she said, brightly. “Come closer so I can get a better look.”

He reached further out with the torch, feet stubbornly planted in one spot.

There was a long stretch of silence, and he rather wished Winnie would hurry up examining whatever it was she was most likely disturbing. He’d learned long ago to stick to the paths in the dark, that beasts sometimes laid themselves down in the night to sleep, and without adequate lighting, you didn’t know they were there until you were right on top of them, and they were biting at your heels as you ran aimlessly through the dark for dear life.

“Winnie, we should really keep moving,” he hissed to her.

There was no reply; not even one of the half-interested hums she made to acknowledge that she’d heard him, but was ignoring him anyway.

“Miss Winnie?”

Blast.

He took a tentative step forward, trying to find her shape in the dark.

There was a rumble in the earth, like the booming rattle of a giant approaching, but Wilson knew these weren’t footsteps; it was too continuous, too even. He wobbled a bit, trying to keep his balance in alarm as there was a great explosion nearby, and a fire roared to life before him. It was huge, the flames reaching high above them and cast in a deep shadow before the flaming pedestal was Winnie, arms outstretched in a deliberate attempt to will the pedestal to light - and to her delight, apparently with success! She wore a great grin that stretched from ear to ear, hey eyes wide and excited as she looked back at him.

“You… did that?” he asked, his voice struggling a bit as he recovered the the weight of the unknown. The new light was warm and bright, casting a huge circle of light around them. Absently, Wilson extinguished the torches to save what was left of them.

Winne stood straight again. “Yes! I did!” she said, a little breathlessly. It sounded like she was a bit winded, but she didn’t seem to mind.

“Uhm…” He blinked, studying the new light source, unsure of what to say for a moment. “…Well done.”

Winnie beamed proudly, seemingly oblivious to his confusion. She had no reason to think it was anything less than obvious: the fire had been lit by magic.

Of course, this was Wilson. It wouldn’t have surprised to know he spent the next half hour wracking his brain trying to figure out how, if he held both torches and she was out of kindling all together, how she’d managed to light the pillar, but it wasn’t the first thing that crossed her mind either.

They spent a long while around the fiery pillar, taking their time to gather supplies in the immediate area, to restock what they had lost wasting time at the last camp fires. Wilson fashioned a crudely made axe by the fire, nearly slicing his finger on the sharp edge of the flint as he tried to bind it properly in the poor light. Winnie foraged in the nearby woods, returning to their impromptu camp with only enough to pass them a few hours. There was very little to be had in the darkness, with no sun to grow anything substantial. She returned with a few rabbits she’d plucked from their holes as they’d slept, and a small handful of berries. It was better than nothing, just barely enough to sate their hunger.

A little pile of small bones collected between them. They were thrown down haphazardly, and Winnie glanced down at them once the pair had finished eating. She had marked each bone while she had cooked then, carving little symbols into the epiphysis of each individual bone. Wilson remained unaware.

She frowned down at the little pile.

All of the markings had landed face down, obscured in the dirt, save for one. The little symbol stared up at her, loud and demanding.

Quickly, she scooped up the bones, digging out a little impression into the earth with the heel of her shoe, tossing them in and burying them quickly, preferring to forget what she’d seen rather than bother Wilson with her divination. He wouldn’t believe her, anyway, and she wasn’t going to set about trying to convince him again.

Winnie didn’t need convincing, though.

She knew it was never a good thing when the only bone to present itself to her was the bone of loss.


	15. Maxwell's Light

Wilson watched her carefully over the next few hours as they walked. Winnie had found a pathway of pillars, and lit each one. Each time there was the same flourish of showmanship as she lit it, and each time there was the same wave of near-exhaustion. They seemed to be taking a lot out of her – he was hardly surprised. It was a bizarre occurrence, each time making him more and more uncomfortable as he reminded himself that by all logic, it shouldn’t have been happening.

A lot about this horrific journey shouldn’t have been happening.

He watched her closely, keeping his gaze on her even as his thoughts drifted away. He wondered if his old camp was still standing. He’d lost track of the seasons a long time ago. They seemed to come and go in spurts, and he was never sure now, how long they would last. Had his old camp been covered by the snow? Had it been demolished by some rampaging deerclops? His stores were certainly rotted by now, not that it mattered. He was doubtful he’d ever see his original camp again.

He doubted he’d see any of the previous camping sites again.

He’d almost had it figured out, too. He’d spent who even knew how long toiling out in the woods, trying to gather the necessary resources and materials to make living out there less of a struggle – necessity is the mother of invention, after all. He’d done what he did best – he’d used science as his aid, and had been so close to something that resembled sustainable living. Shelter, food, supplies… he’d even been working on getting a small farm to grow.

Of course, he knew it wasn’t her fault. Logically, she had nothing to do with it. He was the one who insisted they investigate the door. He’d been dreadfully off-mark, and the pair of them had been pulled into this nightmarish journey because of it, but it was still a nagging thought at the back of his mind whenever he contemplated the subject, what would have happened had she not shown up? Without her wild, brazen, and quite frankly terrifying capacity for travel, would he have ever found the door? He much preferred to stay closer to his camp – though he supposed those days had passed.

He would have, eventually, he figured. It would have only been a matter of time. But any time more would have been wonderful.

He hummed deeply, frowning as he tore his gaze from her back for the first time since she’d lit the first pillar they’d found. Perhaps it was best if he didn’t dwell on those sorts of things. They were here now, and he was rather fond of Miss Winnie. He didn’t hold any resentment against her, at least. The reason – the only reason – why the pair of them were here to begin with was Maxwell. There was no one else to blame, and he knew it would be cruel and pointless to try to project that onto her. She’d been a great help and quite the companion over the last so long.

He watched as another pillar flared to life, and Winnie placed a hand to lean against it. She was breathing hard, sounding not unlike an asthmatic who’d just run a mile uphill. He gave her a curious look as she caught her breath, and all she did was wave him off.

“I’m fine,” she panted, “I’m okay. These things… are a lot harder to light than they look!” she sounded surprised herself by the sentiment, as though she’d not been making things spontaneously combust all evening – was it still evening? Wilson supposed it didn’t really matter. Point was, he was hardly surprised she was exhausted.

“Maybe we should set up a small camp. Just until you’ve recovered. I don’t think the light’ll be going anywhere.” He said. He’d noticed a while ago, the strange pattern of these lighted pillars never extinguishing. They remained lit for as long back as they went, he presumed, seeing the glowing trail behind them.

Winnie looked pale in the glow of the fire. “No, no it’s okay!” She pressed, “I’m fine, really!”

He frowned deeply, not convinced, but he had to admit the idea of stopping to camp in the darkness with little food, no weapons, and no shelter, didn’t quite sit right with him. She seemed reluctant to stop as well. Whether or not it was for the same reasons was beyond him, but after a moment, he nodded. “If you think you’re feeling well enough, Miss Winnie, then we’ll keep going.”

“Yes, please.”

“Perhaps… I should try lighting the pillars. Do you think you could show me how?”

Winnie rubbed gently at her arm. “I’m… not sure. They work because of my magic, I think.”

He sighed. Again with the magic. Well, if that were the case, he was sure he’d be able to light them just as easily as she was, because whatever force she was exerting on them to make them light, it certainly wasn’t magic. “Fine. But please, don’t exhaust yourself, Winnie. We still have the torches, you know.”

She nodded, taking his words into consideration. Truth be told, she didn’t want him lighting these pillars. They drained her immensely, and with each one, an odd and uncomfortable feeling nestled itself in her chest, like a great hollow. She didn’t like it, and she certainly didn’t need the both of them feeling that way.

She held a hand out, a wave of feeling rushing over her as she led the way. It wasn’t a good feeling. With another whooshing roar, another fire sprang to life in front of her. She took a moment to find her center of balance again and repeated this three, then four more times. She began to feel lightheaded. As much as she hated to give in so quickly, she waited a moment to make sure the flame was strong enough, then slumped against the pillar, her back pressed to the cool marble. She buried her face in her hands for a moment, trying to get the world to stop spinning.

Wilson sighed again, sitting down heavily in front of her as he shrugged off the backpack and rubbed wearily at his aching shoulders. “There. See? No worries, miss Winnie, you’ll be back on our feet in no time, I’m sure.” He said, an optimistic tone to his voice. “Until then…” he pulled from the backpack one of the unused torches and the divining rod, standing and lighting the former  in the flames of the pillar. “I will be back shortly. You just rest,” he said, taking a deep breath and steeling himself for the darkness.

Along with their frantic bid for food and resources, Wilson had also had the mind to keep an eye on the divining rod as they’d walked. He’d managed to pick up three of the four components of the platform.

The fourth one had to be out there somewhere. He hated to go alone, but it would be better than doing nothing while Winnie recovered.

“Be careful, please.” This eternal night time had started to seem a hundred times more dangerous than it had when they’d arrived. She couldn’t place the abstract feeling of fear in her chest, but she knew there was something lurking out there. Something other than the night beast Wilson had told her about. She had the faintest sense that all these terrible things were one and the same, but she couldn’t figure out how. She rubbed at her arm as she watched Wilson’s form, poorly lit by the dim glow of his torch, disappear into the inky blackness.

They had very little out here - food was hard to come by, but even worse was the fact that crafting weapons was growing harder and harder. Little pieces of flint were easy to pass in the poor light, and saplings were scarce. Wilson’s sole axe was heavy-handled with the thinnest branch from one of the trees he’d felled earlier, fitted with a single, uncut piece of flint. Once the stone broke, he’d be lucky if he could repurpose the stick into a suitable weapon, but other than that there was nothing.

She rubbed at her arm again.

It was remarkably irritating, the persistent, bone-deep pain. Wilson had done a fine job with her brew, and there was really no reason for a wound so healed over to be bothering her so badly. She dug her nails into her skin, gritting her teeth as she dragged them across her arm, taking a moment to look down at the spot.

Her breath caught and her heart sank as she saw the steadily growing blackened decay, creeping it’s way along her arm like ice over a chilled window pane. She recoiled from it, fearfully. She hadn’t paid it much attention, but now that she was looking at it, she was unsettled to find the black marks that had originally just lined her old wounds had begun to cover her the entirety of her forearm.

She clutched at it, feeling her blood turn icy. Something was very wrong about the magic in this world. She wasn’t sure if it had always been like this. The blackened bloodstains on the wooden platform had been her first clue, but she hadn’t thought it was anything like this. An aggressive consumer of magic, something about this world didn’t play by the same rules her magic did. She swallowed thickly, looking up over her shoulder at the dancing flames. Maybe Wilson was right. Maybe it would be best for them to travel by torchlight from now on.

The twinge of pain was incessant, like a small pin lodged in her flesh, stabbing her with each tiny movement. She grit her teeth and frowned, clutching her arm. There was a worry rising in her chest that she promptly swallowed, standing up with her back against the tall pillar. She wished, in that moment, that she hadn’t torn up her cloak. She would have very much liked something to cover the new marks. Her tiny hand was too small to cover the whole area of the marks, spread out as they were, but she tried, frowning down at them as she heard the crunch of footsteps on dead grass just beyond the darkness. Another bobbing dot of light appeared in the night, followed by Wilson, who was looking rather disquieted himself.

“Not much in the immediate area besides trees. Looks like there’s a swamp up north, though. Think we ought to try there?” was the first thing out of his mouth once he’d snuffed out his torch and took stock of their stock. He paused, and looked up at her. “Are you feeling okay? You look a bit pale.”

She blinked, seemingly surprised he’d asked. It dawned on her that she must have looked like she were about to throw up, or pass out, or both. She wore a striking pallor, only magnified by the terrible light that flickered and flared behind her. “Oh– y-yes, Wilson.” she said, “I’m fine. I’m feeling much better, but…”

“But?”

“Would it be okay if we used the torches for a little bit?” she asked, hoping to avoid the matter of why. She didn’t know exactly what this stressing development was, and didn’t want to bring up any unnecessary worry. “Those pillars are getting to be a bit difficult,” she added, with a polite smile, rubbing gently at the pain in her arm.

“Of course! Of course,” he said, rushedly. It took him a bit by surprise that she’d ask to use the torches, though he had to admit it was a bit of a relief. He hadn’t expected her to ask, given how adamant she’d been about her health before he’d left to check for any nearby components.

Once they gathered their things and their wits, Wilson lit two torches for them, handing one off to Winnie before they went on their way. She took it carefully, keeping her body turned away from him so that he wouldn’t see the blackened spider web pattern on her arm, where her scars had been. She was grateful for the dimmer light, so that it wasn’t so obvious.

She held the torch up with her good arm, letting the other hand hang rather limply at her side, giving her an odd looking gait. She stared down at the ground, deep in thought as she tried to parse out her little predicament.

She knew she ought to tell him. He already knew about the black marks - but this development was unsettling to say the least. She wondered how he would try to explain it - a disease, perhaps, communicable through the bite she’d sustained. Even if he hadn’t seen the shadow creature that had attacked her, he hadn’t tried to deny that it was a bite.

She could practically hear him already - that she should have let him dress it properly, that she should have let him treat it as a proper wound instead of brewing the recipe from her book. She made a mental note to dedicate a page or two to this peculiar misfortune in her Book of Shadows, once she found means of writing. Wilson had showed her, a while back, how to take charcoal from the burnt remains of controlled forest fires that he every so often wrought upon the hellish world he had found himself in. She would have to find some eventually, to write with. It would be messy and ungainly, but it would have to do out here in the middle of nowhere.

She had a lot to record from this world in her book. She didn’t know if her sisters would believe her when she and Wilson finally found their way home - or if she’d ever see her sisters again, having been run from the town. But she felt it was important to record all this - she figured it was partly Wilson’s fault, with all his talk of science and the importance of good record keeping in his experiments. Of course, he never wrote anything down, either; he claimed he had an infallible memory, but she’d been camping out here with him long enough to know what a load of beefalo dung that was.

He’d misplaced his axe more times than she could count, and more than once she’d seen him get so distracted on some tangent or another that he’d forgotten entirely what it was he’d meant to be doing. He’d stopped in the middle of building one of those science machines of his, getting caught up in a passion about the absurdity of academic elitism back home, and all at once, with hammer in hand, had asked her what it was he’d been doing before getting so distracted.

The first time it had happened, she was rather surprised, especially with how studious he was otherwise. She decided to never mention it - he certainly never seemed to notice!

Besides her, Wilson gave a little start, pulling her from her train of thought. She blinked rapidly, looking up at him as he nearly jumped into the air, giving his torch a little shake as he swung it forward. “Look!”

She shook off her startled stupor, squinting in the darkness. She saw… something. She wasn’t sure what it was, though. There seemed to be a faint light up ahead. She raised her torch a bit in hopes of seeing it better, but Wilson was already rushing past her, making a beeline for the light. She tried to keep up with him, and the closer she drew to the mysterious light the better she recognized it as a porch light.

A real, actual, probably not hallucinated porch light.

On someone’s house.

Winnie positively lit up, brighter than her torch or the light or the pillars she’d been lighting since their adventure in the eternal darkness had begun. She gathered the front of her skirt, apron and all, and broke into a sprint, eyes wide at the prospect of finally, after ages, having found other people.

As she ran past him, Wilson seemed to know exactly what was on her mind, and threw a hand out, catching her by the tie of her apron, his grip yanking her back. “Patience, miss Winnie.” he whispered, pulling her back behind him. He raised his torch, swinging it around to see if he could find some sort of landmark. It caught Winnie’s eye first, in the dark, just to her left, and he could tell she’d found what he was looking for by the way her grip tightened on his sleeve. He turned his attention her way, and frowned deeply.

“What on Earth?” she whispered, staring up with some shock and disgust at what appeared to be a severed pig head, mounted on a stick in the swampy ground.

Wilson didn’t give much of an explanation. “Merms,” was all he offered, hushing her as he pulled her away from the house. They remained within the dim field of light, small as it was, but hung around the darkened edges, trying to keep their feet from sinking too far into the mud.

Winnie didn’t know where to begin making heads or tails of his answer, but she certainly heeded his instructions. She followed him, looking back over her shoulder every so often at the mounted head, the gruesome reminder that visitors were not welcomed. Each footstep squelched in the disgusting muddy earth, and each sucking pop as they pulled their feet from the mud sent a jolt down Winnie’s spine. How much would it take for the Merm, whatever the Merm was, to be roused enough to come find them? She certainly didn’t want to find out, but she couldn’t help but morbidly wonder.

Wilson led her in a wide circle around the house, keeping just within the ring of light it produced. His gaze never left the house for more than a few seconds to watch where he was going, as his senses worked overtime to detect some kind of warning in the poor light - the creak of a door, the grumble of the Merm, the splash of the mud, anything. He crept further and further along with a half-petrified Winnie in tow, until, at long last, his foot crunched down on something that wasn’t slimy mud and fish bits.

He looked down.

Dirt.

It was a relief to see, and he tugged Winnie onto the sad little patch as well, yanking her forward perhaps a bit harder than he’d intended. “Here,” he said quickly, his voice hushed as he glanced over his shoulder at the still little hut. “Take a look around - usually these lonesome swamp huts have a bit of spoils we can use.”

Winnie was, understandably, not too enthused about stealing from the person whose choice of lawn decor was a severed head on a stick, but the Gods only knew how much longer they were going to be in this nightmarish world without the sun, and she well enough understood that if they didn’t find enough food soon, they were, without the shadow of a doubt, going to die out there. She gripped her torch tightly, gritting her teeth as she stooped down, plucking a carrot from the dry, barren soil. As it came up from the ground with little resistance, she felt as though she were defusing an explosive - with the occupant of the ramshackle house behind her viable to come exploding out after them at any moment.

She plucked one, two, three carrots from the earth, as well as some edible greens that were growing like weeds throughout the little farm. They would be bitter and distasteful, but would do the scavenging pair some good. Amaranth and Chickweed and Lamb’s Quarter all grew haphazardly through the sizeable patch of dirt, strangling anything that might have been growing here once upon a time. Wilson gave her an odd look over his shoulder as she began weeding the garden, shoving fistfuls of the green leaves and tiny flowering blooms in her pockets, but he’d long ago learned to leave her to her own devices as far as foraging was concerned. She picked and pruned with such certainty and swiftness that he found it impossible to even consider the possibility that she may not know what she was plucking.

She worked feverishly, ripping the weeds from the ground and shoving them into her apron as quickly as she could. She plunged her hand into the thick of the weeds so quickly,that when she was finally met with resistance, she felt as though she nearly broke her fingers on the hard metal something beneath the greens. She snatched her hand back quickly, shaking the pain out as she bit back a swear.

She parted the canopy of greens, frowning for a moment as she searched the bed or weeds. A thrill of excitement ran through her. “Wilson. Wilson!” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down. She grabbed the thing, the strange golden metal crank, standing up quickly and swinging her torch around to find him. The darkness crept closer in as the torch burned further and further down, and her companion was nowhere to be found. “Wilson?” She called again, a bit louder this time as a sense of dread sunk its claws into her chest. They’d made a sure point of sticking together, not getting separated in the darkness, and now he was gone. She didn’t like it. “Wilson? Wil–”

Her voice caught in her throat and she spun on the spot. There was a massive crashing sound coming to a crescendo before her, coupled with a deep snarling sound and the sound of mud being kicked up with every step. She gasped, stumbling backwards with some urgency as she tried to gather herself, tried to turn and run. Nothing seemed to work properly as she tried to prepare for the beast hurtling towards her, and all at once it broke through into her little field of light.

“Winnie!” His voice came out several octaves too high, cracking at the highest point as he grabbed her scarred arm, dragging her with him as he booked it. “It’s time to go!”

She managed to get her feet back underneath her, stumbling as he pulled her along with him, bits of greens falling from her apron as she ran. The flame flickered dangerously as the wind whipped at it, but there was still enough light for her to see what was barrelling after them.

It was unlike anything she had ever seen - a beast that towered over the both of them at an easy six feet tall. It was hulking, its shoulders hunched up behind its head. But the oddest, most frightening thing about it was exactly what it was.

To be quite frank, Winnie didn’t know what it was. The closest she could say was that it was a giant walking, angry fish.

Oh.

So that’s what Wilson meant by Merm.

She panted, struggling to keep up with Wilson with the torch in one hand and her other hand being crushed in Wilson’s vice grip as he dragged her along. Her breath came in terrified little gasps as she stumbled and staggered after him.

There was a deep snarl, almost a roar on her heels, and Winnie’s heart nearly hammered out of her chest. The roar fell away with each thunderous step they took, and she watched by the flickering, dying light, the darkness closing in behind her as the creature fell away.

“Wilson!” she gasped, tugging on his hand as he dragged her along with him. He didn’t seem to realize the Merm had lost interest. His own torch was flickering dangerously, and as she ran alongside him, she could see the stark stress of fear on his features. He was really actually scared of this creature - and of course she couldn’t blame him, that thing had been something straight from a nightmare.

“Wilson!” she hissed again, trying to wrench her hand from his. His grip was iron, unbelievably strong for the wiry man. “Wilson, stop!” she snapped, digging her heels into the heavy earth, bringing them both to a screeching halt.

Wilson’s eyes went wide as he came to a sudden stop, his entire body jerking backwards as Winnie anchored him. It came as a shock to him, but moreso for Winie, who accidentally slammed into his back as he jerked her forward one last time as he came to a stop. The two toppled forward, her heel turning and sending her down without any hope of recovery.

As the pair hit the swamp, their torches landed directly in the choking mud. The two of them fizzled out with a hiss, swathing them both in complete, terrifying, suffocating darkness. Winnie felt a stab of fear as she heard Wilson’s gasp. The two of them began to scramble in the dark, groping blindly to find a new light.

“No, no, no, it’ll be here soon, we need light, we need light–” Wilson strained, through gritted teeth. His blood ran cold, as his heart somersaulted wildly, a dreadful anticipation carving a hollow in his chest as he frantically tried to light the end of a new torch. Sparks flew, giving brief, explosive relief from the darkness, and Winnie could just barely see the fear in his features in the eerie glow of the jumping sparks as he tried to make the torch catch.

Everything in that moment was loud - the clink of flint, the blood rushing in her ears, the rabbity breaths in the dark as Wilson tried to hang onto his composure long enough to get some sort of fire going - but louder than all of that, louder than her own thoughts, was a howling, whistling sound like aggressive wind blowing against a window pane. She swallowed thickly, looking up, trying to find the source of the sound.

“What was that?” she asked, her voice so quiet she was sure it would be lost under the cacophony of sounds that surrounded them.

She knew what it was, of course. Wilson had been warning her of it this whole time. Whatever terrible creature lurked out in the darkness, it was here, and they were unable to get a fire going to, quite literally, save their lives.

The sound grew louder, rattling her bones as whatever it was grew so loud she could barely think straight anymore. Though she couldn’t see anything, she could feel a chill, something cold striking deep within her. She opened her mouth to call to Wilson, but all that same out was a hot pain.

Her entire body lurched, leaving her gasping for breath as something rushed past her lips. It felt like her chest was going to explode, there was such a sharp pressure. But it was over just as soon as it had started, and she gasped for breath, wobbling slightly on her knees.

“I - I think something bit me!” she said, panicked. The moment the words left her mouth, she knew they weren’t quite right. It hadn’t been a bite. She’d been bitten by her sister’s cat Chocolate; she’d been bitten by spiders and even an unruly dog that her uncle had owned once. She knew what it felt like to be bitten by some wild creature; what she had just experienced felt more akin to having swallowed pins. But oh, it was hard to put into words.

“The night beast - Winnie, if it catches you again, you’ll be done for, we need to light a torch, n–OW!” There was a violent thrash besides her, as Wilson felt the same tearing sensation that she had. They were both one for two hits. Wilson had seen this thing take down merms and pig men twice their size with no more than three sweeping attacks. There was precious little time left, and Wilson tried to keep his hands from shaking long enough to strike the flint over the bundled head of the torch. It had to catch, it had to catch, it had to catch…

The sparks flew, producing small fires in the dry grass that burned for no more than a few seconds before petering out, embers dying to make way for this night beast. Her heart pounded in her chest, quite the feat after that thing had passed through her. Her chest ached terrible, and her head felt cloudy, her thoughts like soup, but she was still aware enough to recognize the glint of marble, lighted upon by the small flames that sizzled around them every so often.

She held her breath for a moment, looking at the now darkened spot where she’d seen the sheen of the rock just beyond. It was hard to focus, now, but she could hear that howling whistle again, and felt that if it didn’t kill her, the sheer terror that sound from the darkness evoked in her would be enough to stop her heart all together.

It was growing closer, louder all the time, and Winnie was quietly grateful that it had such a mind to announce itself. She had seconds left, if what Wilson said was true, and she planned to use them wisely. With a great force, driven by panic and desperation, Winnie threw out her hands.

Wilson could hear it too, and the moment he registered the sound, all sense of composure left him. His aim with the flint was so off there was no hope of having it catch on the torch head, but he kept striking. Sparks wouldn’t be enough to keep this beast at bay, and he grit his teeth and tried not to think about the seconds it would take for this thing to rip through Winnie, and then through himself, leaving them both dead in the dark–

Wilson gasped, his heart nearly stopping in his chest and his head spinning with the intake as he was suddenly bathed in light. The howling dissipated like radio static, scattered on the winds that remained. He felt like he was very promptly going to be sick.

Sitting before them, burning brightly and surely, was one of the lighted pillars.

“What – did you–?” he asked Winnie, a bit breathless. She only nodded in response, doubled over in the mud with her head hanging down as she caught her breath.

Oh, goodness.

“Winnie - Winnie, are you okay?” he asked, shifting himself in the foul smelling swamp enough to move to her. As he neared her in the dim light, he saw that she wasn’t doubled over, but rather clutching at her arm. Had she gotten hurt? As far as he knew, the night beast didn’t leave much in the way of physical injuries - none that were readily visible, at least. Perhaps the Merm had gotten her - or the fall, even. There was the looming possibility that she might have broken her arm when they fell. Wilson had never had to deal with broken bones while he was out here, and quite frankly the idea of it made him a little queasy, but already the cogs were turning in his head as he formulated some plan of action were that the case. “Come– come here, let me see,” he coaxed her gently, trying to unfold her so he could see what damage had been done.

Wilson let out a little exhale as he saw her arm.

At first he thought it was a trick of the light, but after blinking a few times, he was sure it was no such thing. Her arm was covered in an intricate, thin spider web pattern of what almost looked like black ink. It climbed like ivy up her arm in both directions, reaching up past her elbow now.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice holding a tinge of alarm. Her forearm looked well into the fourth stage of decay, but he could tell the flesh was still alive and healthy, if not for this peculiar oversight. “Winnie, my god, what happened to you?”

“The… the lights… were a bit difficult,” she admitted, watching a bit dazedly as he poked and prodded at her arm. She realized with some distant distress that she couldn’t actually feel his touch. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to care. “I’m okay. I’m fine.” she said, her voice lacking much conviction. That worried him more than anything.

“No, you’re not,” he said firmly, frowning deeply. He’d never seen the night monster do this to anyone, and right now her halfhearted explanation was all he really had to go off of. Could her bizarre, unbelievable methods of lighting the mysterious pillars really have put her in such a state? “Winnie this is terrible, we - we have to do something about this!” he said turned from her for a moment, rummaging through the backpack in hopes of finding something that could help her.

“It’s not all bad,” she said, shifting to sit up a bit more and face him.

He grabbed something to move it out of the way in his mad bid for the bottom of the backpack, and he stopped. Her book. It had proved useful in the past, even if he didn’t exactly understand how; he wasn’t holding out hope that her strange book was going to have anything useful to this particular malady, if one could even call it that, but it was their best option right now. He snatched it up, flipping quickly through the pages to see if she had anything on the matter. He flipped past any number of entries, things detailing different plants and their uses, different crystals and their uses, names and entries of old Gods of ancient pantheons that Wilson was sure had died out a long time ago.

“What do you mean it’s not all bad, Winnie, have you even seen–” he stopped, looking up at her.

She wore a smile, looking like she’d just told a bad joke, and in her hand was a dirty, mud-caked metal crank - the last piece of their escape from eternal night.


	16. Freedom, at Last!

Winnie frowned deeply, groaning as she started to stir. She had a terrible headache, and it still felt as though there were hot pins poking at her arm. She rolled onto her side, clutching the affected area, gritting her teeth as she sat up on the hard stone ground. Her eyes managed to open after a moment, and it took her longer than she’d care to admit to realize they were open. They adjusted slowly, and her heart sank. **  
**

The world was still dark.

“Wil– Wilson,” she whispered, looking around her in a panic before she found the dark shape of his form. She leaned over on her hands and knees, nudging him carefully in the shoulder as he lay still unconscious. These trips weren’t getting easier, but she was finding it easier to shake off the grogginess and disorientation once she awoke. “Wilson, come on, wake up.” she hissed, as he took a sharp breath, bolting upright.

There was dim light, and in it she could see the dawning disappointment on his features. ‘What– what happened? Is it still night?” he asked, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead, trying to stave off his own headache. He took a deep breath and clambered to his feet, lifting Winnie with him as he stood.

He blinked in the darkness, looking around. A pillar burned weakly behind them, and Wilson felt something uncomfortable settle in his chest as he turned towards the girl. “Winnie!” His voice held a tone of reprimand that she was very surprised to hear. “You have to stop with these bloody pillars, you’re going to hurt yourself!” he snapped, grabbing her wrist and angling her arm to better see the strange scars in the dim light.

She made a small sound of fright as he grabbed her, but quietly let him examine her affliction, only to find that it hadn’t changed in the least - not an inch nor hue was different than it had been when she’d first shown it to him. “I didn’t light those pillars,” she admitted quietly, a terrible creeping sense of foreboding in her chest telling her to keep it down. She didn’t like this - their situation had taken a peculiar turn, with the darkness and the mysteriously lit pillars, the scar on her arm that still burned like the dickens. It was all a bit too much for her tastes, and she dabbled in the occult for as long as she could remember!

He blinked, taken off guard by her answer. He wasn’t sure if he believed her or not, but she didn’t seem to be in any more pain that she had been before they’d left the eternal night, and her unusual scars didn’t seem any more prominent than they had then, either. Despite his suspicions, all signs pointed to her honesty. “I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her. She rubbed gently at her wrist, and he felt a flare of warmth in his cheeks as he realized how forward he’d been. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she said, only lying a little. She felt like death, but she’d come to expect that upon waking up fresh out of the strange machine. “Just a little concerned. I thought that last machine was supposed to lead us away from eternal night.”

“It was.” Wilson spoke flatly, his voice holding no small amount of disappointment and frustration. “I’m getting rather tired of being run around in circles. How about you?” He managed to his feet, letting her clasp her hand into his to pull her to a stand as well. (they already stood up a couple or few paragraphs back, bro) The question held a sort of weight to it, one that suggested he wasn’t actually looking for an answer. He knew well enough.

He released her again, dusting his hands off and then doing the same to his pants, which had gathered quite a bit of chalky dust from the uneven stone floor - which, he noted with a bit of disdain, was every bit as comfortable as it sounded. Wonderful waking point they’d found themselves this time, truly.

He looked up, trying to find a sliver of moon or some stars - anything that might aid them in the next leg of their journey, but to his dismay, he found nothing but inky blackness. The light from the pillar only extended so far, and beyond that there was sheer nothingness. He was growing more and more convinced that Winnie had been telling the truth. Even in her exhausted state, she made sure the pillars she lit burned brightly. These ones were well lit, certainly, but hardly as strong as her flames had been.

Which begged the question, of course: If she hadn’t lit this pillar, who had? Surely they weren’t just going to spontaneously ignite on their own. Even for all the quote-unquote ‘magical’ nonsense he’d put up with since meeting Winnie, even she would have to admit that was just too far fetched. Fire, no matter real or magical or what have you, always needed an igniting factor, and if no one was there to spark the pillars to life, that factor was simply absent.

He cleared his throat, finding his mind wandering again. He would readily admit he was prone to getting hung up on little, rather inconsequential things in the face of a larger problem - like the matter of the self-lighting pillars versus the looming implications of their new location.

The pair were quiet for a moment. “Do you hear that?” Winnie asked, her voice struggling out of her as she questioned her own senses for a moment.

He listened carefully, hearing the ethereal echoes of a closed cave system. Perhaps that accounted for the lack of heavenly bodies - even though this island seemed to have a constant cloud cover, the stars and the moon almost always lent the eeriest glow to the earth below them, the light just enough to make your eyes play tricks, but never enough to keep one safe.

“Indeed. Some sort of feedback. Echo, perhaps? Faint. We may be in some sort of cave system,” he informed her. All in all, it was so faint it was almost impossible to tell. He struggled just to hear that much, and glanced over at her for her thoughts. “What?” he asked, as it very quickly came to his attention that she was staring at him as though he’d grown another pair of arms.

She shook her head, almost grimacing as she tried to gather her thoughts again. Of course they were in a cave system. The dripping stalactites and ominous howls from deep within the rock were enough evidence of that. “I’m talking about the music, Wilson.”

His mouth hung open for a moment. For the first time since she’d met him, Wilson Percival Higgsbury was truly speechless. It was a sight to behold, but one that still gnawed at any sense of security she might have been clinging on to. “…Music? What– what music? Are you sure you’re feeling well? Perhaps you hit your head when we arrived…” he reached a bit towards the top of her head, as if making to examine her more closely, but she swatted him away.

“You can’t tell me you don’t hear that.” she deadpanned, disbelieving. Winnie was willing to believe a lot of things, but unless Wilson had just suddenly gone deaf, there was no way he didn’t hear the upbeat music echoing through the caverns. It was faint, sure, but it was still distinct. She could make out every note, the jaunty jazz that bounced through the cavernous place.

He merely shrugged, at a loss for any conversation. As he began to gather their things, once again prying the divining rod from its bizarre perch that accompanied each of their new arrivals, he couldn’t help but try to imagine what sort of sudden onset of insanity this must be. Perhaps it was a mental side effect of whatever unfortunate ailment she’d been suffering after lighting the pillars. That was the only feasible explanation he could come up with, other than the off chance she’d just gone plum crazy.

Though that always was a possibility. He’d debated her mental state more than once since he’d met her, with all her ramblings about witchcraft.

Despite her sudden interests with the mysterious music, her companion’s cluelessness was not lost on her. There was a distinct unease between them as Winnie listened to the strange ragtime music that echoed through the caverns. The song seemed almost familiar, though she was sure she’d never heard it before in her life. Nevertheless, she was suddenly enthralled with it, eager to find the source. If there was music down here, there was a chance that there were people down there as well. Though she’d given up on that ideal a long time ago, with each new world that they traveled to, her hope was renewed. She was ever the optimist, of course. In order to survive in a place like this she had learned that you had to be. Anything less was simply too depressing - completely out of the question!

That was certainly something she was good at: bottling away her fears and doubts, preferring to focus on the more lighthearted and the silver lining in things. She liked to think of it as a delicate art, one that she’d mastered a long time ago.

Regardless, she was still enraptured with the music drifting lazily down the long hallways. She waved away all of Wilson’s attempts to stop her, stepping headlong into the darkness to follow the mysterious tune.

The moment her foot hit the unlit stone beyond the ring of light provided by the pillar, another sprang to life. This was was just as lackluster as the last, dim and weak compared to her own, but much less effort to maintain. She lit up almost as eagerly as the pillar, looking back at Wilson, who got the distinct message that she expected him to follow her - and right he was, as without another word, Winnie turned back and took off, her feet hitting the stone with echoing footfalls, which became the only concrete sound in the caves that Wilson could hear.

His heart leaped in his chest as she took off, and the poor man nearly jumped a mile as he took off like a shot after her. Their belongings slammed painfully against his spine with each and every pounding step he took chasing her in a flurry of flames that roared to life with their approach and sputtered out behind them.

“Winnie! Winnie please, wait! You don’t even know where you’re going!” he called after her, his voice somewhere between a full shout and a nervy little hiss. He was fully aware that at any moment, some corporeal beast could lunge at them from the darkness. The night beast wasn’t the only creature they had to fear in the darkness, after all. But her energy and his distress kept the both of them thundering forward, one breathlessly chasing after the other chasing after the music.

She didn’t heed his calls - she knew he’d be able to keep up, if his marathon sprint back in the swamp was any indication. He was deceptively quick on his feet compared to the stumbling, bumbling scientist she’d grown used to.

There were moments when she would come to a stop, allowing him to catch up, but it was only when the pathways came to a crossroad. She would look wildly about her as Wilson approached again, trying to grab at her, to stop her in her tracks, but before he could reach her she’d be off in the direction of the music once more. She had a one-track mind if he’d ever seen one - that was particularly cutting considering his own ability to get unreasonably wrapped up in his interests and work - but this was downright ridiculous!

In her fervor, Winnie had failed to notice one particularly important detail about this cave system that Wilson was quite frankly desperate to enlighten her to: while still clearly enclosed in whatever bizarre underground system they had found themselves in, the cave floors - while still made of unforgiving rock - had become much more uniform. In fact, the further Winnie took them, the more uniform the patterns on the cold stone became, until it resembled almost a perfect chessboard pattern.

Now he was no geologist, but something about that just didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t like it one bit, but Winnie seemed oblivious, rushing headlong into the peculiar domain to chase after some imaginary music - which he still didn’t hear, mind you!

Occasionally, she would call back to him, enthralled like a young child chasing butterflies. “This way, Wilson!” she’d call over her shoulder, disappearing into another patch of darkness that was illuminated by one of the pillars moments later.

“Winnie, please, stop! This is a very bad idea! Come back here this instant!”

Never in the months of knowing her had he felt more like a bloody baby sitter.

And a bad one at that.

He panted, watching as another pair of pillars ignited just ahead. He reached them, glad to see she’d come to another crossroad, for the chance to catch his breath. He rested his palms against his knees as he doubled over, staring down at one dark grey patch of checkerboard beneath his feet. It stared back up at him unpleasantly.

“Winnie, please!” he tried again, picking himself up before she could take off again. She didn’t move, and it suddenly dawned on him with a jolt that this wasn’t a crossroads. “Uhm. Thank you.” he said, clasping his hands in front of her, a bit unsure. He watched her back for a moment, expecting… Well, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting, but the top possibilities on his list were for her to either take off again or simply drop dead where she stood. With how this day had been going so far, either seemed as likely as the other.

He reached tentatively for her shoulder. “Miss Winnie…?” he asked, making contact. His hand was light and unsure, but she still looked back at him.

“I can still hear it, but…” she grimaced, looking back up in front of her. His gaze followed hers, and he let out a little exhale of understanding.

It was massive - entirely sculpted from marble, it seemed. And though both the survivors knew it was just a statue, they couldn’t help but feel more than a little intimidated by it. There before them, standing triumphantly, was a carving of Maxwell himself. He wore a wicked grin, and the points of his claws - and yes, Wilson gathered, they were claws, rather than fingers - were just as sharp.

It sent a chill down the scientist’s spine and the witch was close to follow. She shrank back from it, suddenly looking unsure. She could still hear the music but Gods, if this was even a bad omen.

“Perhaps we should leave,” Wilson suggested quietly, almost afraid that the statue would hear him. At this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if it could, but he had to remind himself to not let this place get the better of his rational mind. A statue; that’s all it was. It was an inanimate, if ugly, chunk of chiseled rock. Nothing more.

He tugged on her shoulders, prompting her to move despite neither of them taking their eyes off of the massive tribute to the game maker that had trapped the both of them in this nightmarish hellscape. She yielded, moving backwards with him as she held her breath. The statue loomed over the pair of them, tall and demanding and teeming with something that Winnie could only describe as evil. As she stepped backwards, she absently wondered if Wilson felt it too - how often they seemed to experience the world differently, her senses picking up on the most mundane things that Wilson couldn’t seem to, like the music, or the whispers.

“Yeah,” she agreed, being the first to tear her gaze from the statue. She turned back to her companion, and in an instant knew that he felt it too. He was pale - paler than usual, and that was saying something, and rather jittery. His gaze kept snapping back to Maxwell’s figure, even after he’d looked down at Winnie for the first time after they approached the display. “Come on– let’s head back, I think I saw some trees in a small clearing off the sides of one of the crossroads. We can start camp at a nearby pillar.” she said, linking her arm with his as she stared dead ahead, refusing to look back at the terrible likeness.

Wilson, too, frowned deeply as she led him away. There was no escaping the wretched man; even as they traversed whatever impossible landscapes the fiend found for them, he was always there to remind the gentleman scientist that this was his doing - his fault, his game. It put a vile knot of disgust in Wilson’s stomach, the thought that they were so easily got, just by the man’s likeness. He didn’t know where or how, but he was certain that in that moment the real monstrosity of a man was off somewhere laughing at them, that they were spooked so easily by nothing more than a poorly crafted statue.

Winnie and Wilson came to the edge of the nearest ring of light, slowing as they waited for the pillar beyond the light for them, to allow them safe, lit passage back to where they’d come from.

The witch couldn’t exactly say off the top of her head which turns she’d taken when, but she was assured in her sense of direction. Even if all the crossroads had all looked the same, she had confidence that she’d be able to find the way back once she was traversing the labyrinth-like caves.

Of course, they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if the pillars didn’t light again. The two stood there at the edge of darkness, a jittery uncertainty starting to creep through their chests as the seconds ticked away.

“Maybe… it’s out of fuel?” Wilson offered hopefully.

“Maybe. Uhm…” She slid her arm from his, rubbing absently at the aching scar on her wrist before she held her hands out. She felt a discharge of magic from her fingertips, the telltale pulse like an overactive heartbeat that radiated out from her palms, but the path before them remained dark.

She looked back at Wilson, preferably for some instruction, but he was at as much of a loss as she was; they had no supplies with which to craft even the smallest campfire or even a single torch to take with them back through the dark caverns.

There was a sinking dread in his chest as he pulled Winnie back away from the edge of the darkness, the pillar behind them still lit reliably, casting horrific shadows up onto the statue that gave it an eerie, demonic quality. Wilson certainly didn’t want to go back towards the statue and he could tell by the way Winnie was slow to go with him that she didn’t either, but it seemed that forward was their only option right now.

“Just until we can find some material for torches,” he told her. She agreed, glad to have some semblance of a plan as the fear that had been steadily rising in her chest upon discovering the doused pillar dissipated, though she couldn’t shake the feeling of a heavy dread either.

Each felt silly for letting the disquiet of the caverns and their unfortunate discovery of Maxwell’s statue get the better of them.

They walked together in silence, Wilson linking his arm securely with hers for fear she would run off again. He had a creeping feeling that this place was more sinister than either of them knew; if it had any more tricks like those doused pillars up its metaphorical sleeves, they were going to have to take this particular part of their journey with the utmost care. Every step they took could be past the point of no return, like it had been at the statue, and Wilson wasn’t willing to take that risk without being absolutely certain that they were doing their absolute best to outsmart this tricky place.

Thanks to the unsettling nature of the pillars, he was able to keep his hands free of torches and the like, allowing him to both keep a grip on his flighty companion as well as carry the divining rod. He hated to admit how much he trusted the strange contraption - it hadn’t failed them since the very first moment Winnie had brought it out into the field. He held it in high regard, considering it one of the only reliable pieces of machinery on this whole science-forsaken island - assuming they were even still on the island anymore. It was rather difficult to tell, in the midst of a subterranean hellscape like this one.

The divining rod moaned quietly with every few steps they took, and was a nice change from the whistling of the caverns, but Winnie looked thoroughly displeased every time the little chime went off. Wilson would readily admit, it was a grating sound, but surely she had to prefer the steady, sure sound of the divining rod over what was probably the screaming of every demon in hell down the path there.

Perhaps Winnie wouldn’t have minded it so if there weren’t so many other noises it was competing with. The steady moan of the divining rod, and the howling of the winds, combined with the whispers that were just too quiet to hear properly, and that blasted music - that incessant tune that played on an endless loop echoing down the halls of the caverns… it was all jumbling together, making an irritating cacophony in her head.

“You really can’t hear it? Any of it?” she asked him, pinching the bridge of her nose as she felt a headache coming on.

“I’m sorry Miss Winnie, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sighed, having hoped they could move past talk of this phantom radio station she was apparently channelling. “All I hear is the divining rod and the ambience of the caves.”

That sounded a lot more pleasant than it actually was; there was a constant underlying terror of something that lurked in the shadows getting the upper hand against them; he had to force himself to not fashion a weapon out of the blunt staff end of the divining rod, just in case.

But whatever paranoia he may have felt about the shadows, it was clearly nothing compared to whatever delusions she was experiencing.

She did her best to shut the noises out, staring down at her feet as Wilson led her along with the divining rod, but even then she couldn’t help but hear the sounds grow louder and louder with every crossroads they passed. It was hard to ignore, but even more difficult to ignore was the pattern. The divining rod grew louder with the steadily rising music.

She suddenly felt light. It was a bizarre feeling, but the moment the thought crossed her mind, the sounds became less harrowing, less of a bother. Her headache evaporated almost immediately, and her strides became quicker, energized with each confirmation that her music was indeed growing louder with the divining rod - a divining rod of a different sort!

She was suddenly excited, if a little scared. What was this redundant music leading her to? What was the divining rod leading Wilson towards? Were they even one and the same? It was almost exhilarating.

He noticed a marked change in his companion as the trek wore on; he was rather surprised by her sudden change in demeanor; he recalled finding the tone of the divining rod rather difficult to love at first too, but there was no telling what had flipped her mood so drastically all of a sudden. He had to admit, it was a pleasant surprise! She was so chipper and seemed rather excited once she pulled herself out of that mood, it was almost contagious. She seemed invested in the goings on of the divining rod, looking delighted every time it chimed them closer still to whatever piece of the next machine they were to construct.

The next stretch of caverns was long and narrow, with two rows of pillars that lit with a flourish, remaining on behind them as they moved down the path. It was like a long, creepy red carpet - guiding the wary travelers along the walk. It was something that sat uneasily with him. He didn’t like how… organized, these abandoned, lifeless caverns were.

“I certainly hope we come across some trees soon. Even if we can just snap a branch or two to use as a torch… I don’t fancy wandering further inwards than we have to,” he whispered to her, trying to keep his voice from echoing.

“It’s just up ahead,” she said, certainty in her voice. He would have liked to believe she meant trees, but something told him she was still talking about that imaginary tune she kept hearing. He imagined it must have been rather loud for her to seem so certain - it also explained why she didn’t seem bothered by her own echo.

She was eager to find the source of the music - it was close now, very close. With each new pillar that burst to life, the girl expected to be faced with a suddenly illuminated home, or at the very least a friendly survivor.

Thwoosh, thwoosh, thwoosh, went the pairs of pillars lining their path, until at last they came to an end, illuminating a small patch of cave where the shadows seemed to end. There was no visible light source, and yet the darkness was dispelled far beyond the reach of the last pillars.

Winnie and Wilson came staggering to a stop together, their hearts both plummeting together deep into the stone floor. Their blood ran cold, and Wilson felt her grip tighten.

“Is this what you were expecting?”

Neither of the survivors said anything. He felt her fingers dig into his arm, and dimly realized he was braced for far worse.

“Forgive me if I don’t get up.” It was very clear he was unable to. Thick black ropes bound his ankles and his wrists to the throne, restricting his movement. The man’s tone was bitter, his voice rough and heavy as he stared down at the pair. Unlike the man immortalized in stone beyond the darkness, this man was thin and frail, slumped in his seat - a massive throne of squirming shadows. They flit from your sight, and Winnie had to tear her gaze from him to even see them as anything but the solid mass they presented themselves to be. Nothing more than a trick of the light.

“Maxwell…” Winnie breathed. There was a deranged certainty in the back of her mind that this was really him - that he was really here, instead of the bizarre half-there forms she remembered staring down at them. This was much different.

“You’ve both been interesting play things,” he sighed in a plainly bored tone of voice, “but I’ve grown tired of this game…” he considered for a moment, frowning down at them. “…or maybe They’ve grown tired of me. Heh.” A wry grin etched creases in his cheeks. “Took them long enough.”

Something unpleasant crawled its slimy way up Wilson’s back. He certainly didn’t like this man - the very reason either of them were trapped on this island in the first place! - but he especially didn’t like his ramblings. After everything there wasn’t a question in his mind that Maxwell was certifiably insane (not a mention cruel, insidious, evil itself most likely) but the way he spoke strongly suggested he was entirely unhinged. Wilson planted the divining rod firmly between Maxwell and him and his companion, as if to suggest having drawn a boundary in the rocky floor. He was having none of this lunacy! The moment the trickster shut his mouth, Wilson was going to demand he undo whatever he’d done and let them leave the caves. But it had been a long, long time since Maxwell had talked to anyone. He had rehearsed his lines over and over like any good showman would, and he was going to do his act no matter what the funny little half-wit scientist thought of it.

Slowly, his gaze turned away from Wilson, shifting over but a few inches. Winnie felt her blood chill.

“They will show you terrible, beautiful things,” he hissed. She shrank back, watching him lean forward on his throne before he seemed to lose the sudden energy. He sighed again, leaning back. “It’s best not to fight it…” he coughed. “There wasn’t much here when I showed up. Just dust. And the Void. And Them.”

There was that vague term again, ‘Them.’ Who was ‘Them’? Wilson didn’t like dealing in uncertainties. He didn’t like half-truths or incomplete knowledge. And through Maxwell’s little monologue, each incomplete left him feeling more and more manipulated. He didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him of course, but that unpleasant feeling persisted.

Winnie, on the other hand, was rapt with attention. Perhaps it was genuine interest. Even better yet, perhaps it was fear. Mankind coveted that which it feared, Maxwell knew only too well. He wanted to hold her attention, to keep her from turning back down the path.

“I’ve learned so much since then. I’ve built so much.” There was pride in his voice, one that spanned ages. It almost sounded like was was talking about the very world itself - but that would have been ridiculous. “But even a King is bound to the board… you can’t change the rules of the game,” he warned. It was a grave statement that settled heavily in the chests of both survivors listening to this grim monologue.  “I don’t know what They want. They… They just watch.” It wasn’t a pleasant statement, and his frown only made him look all the more ancient atop his throne, but he spoke with conviction all the same. “Impossible to please, too. An audience every budding magician fears… and with good reason.”

Winnie looked up at him with interest. A magician?

He grinned down at her, eyes bright and sharp and alert despite his fatigued look. “Yes, little witch. A magician. Now, go ahead. Put the key in the box. Or don’t. It’s your decision. Either way you’re just delaying the inevitable. Reality is like that, sometimes.”

“You were a magician? Is that why I’m here?” she asked, eagerly. She was entirely too forward, and Wilson squirmed uncomfortably next to her. He didn’t trust Maxwell or his story - hell, at this point he wasn’t even willing to believe he was a magician at all! A really flamboyant demon, maybe. But not a regular old loony magician.

Maxwell tilted his head downwards a bit. “I think I’ve said enough.”

Winnie firmly believed that there was no such thing as a coincidence, and nothing that had happened on this island since her arrival had been enough to convince her otherwise. The game maker had a certain look about him, almost like he was waiting for her to put the pieces together. He was a magician; she was a witch. The connection was there, she just had to make sense of it somehow.

“The key…?” she asked absently, receiving no answer.

“Winnie, don’t pay him any mind. He’s a nutjob! He’s the reason we’re here in the first place!” Wilson shook her, trying to get her to think reasonably again. “I’m very concerned what’s going through that head of yours! This is mad! First the shadows, then the imaginary mus– music…” he sputtered to a stop, catching a glint of dusty, ancient brass.

The disc spun rhythmically, a steady pace with no bumps or changes, but no sound seemed to be coming out. Could she really have been hearing that musty contraption this whole time? He released her shoulders, moving to examine it curiously. He placed one hand at his hip and the other at his chin as he leaned slightly over the device, watching the old disc spin. The label was worn and illegible, which was a shame considering he couldn’t even hear whatever was playing. Frowning, he leaned down and lifted the needle from the disc.

“Thank you,” Maxwell said. “I’ve been listening to that song for an eternity…”

Winnie blinked as the song went out with a discordant scratch, looking over to find Wilson having moved the needle. It had surprised her, shaking her from her thoughts, and as she looked over at the eccentric scientist examining the gramophone, her gaze wandered to the other side of the throne Maxwell was slumped back in. It was a small wooden platform, no larger than a dinner plate and only a few inches high. She found it peculiar.

Oh, there was nothing entirely remarkable about the platform itself. But she’d never seen one so out of the way before. She knew what these platforms were, of course, she and Wilson had seen them more times than they could count since encountering the door. The little platforms were to hold the divining rod. The pair always found one perched in a platform when they arrived in a new place, and always found one mounted by the wooden things that helped them along on their journey - though Winnie wasn’t so sure she would call it help any more. The devices that shuffled them between worlds seemed to do little but cause the pair trouble.

But it was clear what this little platform was for.

Winnie picked up the divining rod, examining the tail end of it that Wilson had jammed so stubbornly into the ground. A flat, hexagonal bottom, perfect for locking into the hexagonal notch in the platform.

The key looked like it would fit. She could free Maxwell.

She doubted his captors would be happy, but she and Wilson had come this far. They’d survived against all odds - the Gods had certainly kept the pair in their favor. Why not now? Winnie trusted their will - to lead her to the Island, to lead her here, to put Maxwell’s very means of escape in her hands. She trusted they would continue leading her down whatever path she was meant to travel.

The lock turned with a neat little click.

Wilson looked up the moment he heard the click. “Winnie, what are you–” he wasn’t afforded the opportunity to finish his question, as the ground gave a great lurch, like the beginnings of an earthquake. The man was thrown down as Winnie braced herself up against the divining rod, now secure in its place. Wilson grimaced and winced, throwing his hands over his ears as a horrible, discordant screech cut through the cavern, like screaming strings of a violin.

He watched in shock as the bindings around Maxwell’s limbs unraveled and the throne collapsed. There was the briefest moment of fear as Wilson watched Maxwell revel in his newfound freedom before he took a wheezing breath and a new sound cut through the cavern, a coarse scream as he collapsed to his knees, arms still outstretched in a pose not unlike that which his statue held ad infinitum. His flesh turned to dust, leaving ancient bone to crumble in its wake.

Winnie looked like she was moments away from being sick, but she wasn’t afforded a chance to recover from the ghastly sight of their tormentor falling to pieces.  The moment Maxwell’s bones had settled, two reaching hands rose from the rock beneath her feet, shadows rising with their claws stretched greedily towards her.

He struggled to right himself, clambering to his feet as the hands grabbed her and lifted her into the air before grabbing her around the waist and pulling her down. She screamed, her voice fading out as she was dragged down beneath the rock. He dove for her, the impact against the stone painful as he scrabbled for nothing. He took a sharp breath as he realized she’d already sunk beneath the rock. Where had they taken her?

He struggled back to his hands and knees, searching around wildly for her. “Winnie!”

God, none of this made any sense. Maxwell had died, right before his eyes! They were free, finally, with no more tyrannical maniac with a flair for showmanship, no more beasts and no more night monsters! They were so close to finally going home, and now Winnie was gone, Where had they taken her?

There was that word again, ‘They.’ It drove him mad, to think that They were still jerking the survivors around like this, even when all should have been said and done. It drove him mad to think he considered Them a thing at all! It was all so unreasonable…

There was a heat, a tingle in the air just moments before there was a flash and a crack - a bolt of lightning! He curled in on himself, trying to shield himself from the heat. From the scorch mark rose black spires that curled and shifted and formed themselves like regenerative growth into the familiar form of a throne.

“Wilson!”

He looked up, just in time to see the black bindings wrap themselves securely around Winnie’s limbs, just as they had been wrapped around Maxwell’s. There was a look of stark horror on her face as she tugged vainly at her bindings. They were stuck fast, barely giving as she put all of her might behind her efforts. He watched as one wrapped itself around her middle and dragged her back into her seat, keeping here there.

This wasn’t what she’d wanted at all. This was a living nightmare; the shadows on her skin felt like ice, and the scars on her arm like fire. She gasped for breath, her head spinning as she saw Wilson try to clamber up to her, tugging on her restraints in a sad attempt to free her. There was another flash and Wilson was thrown backwards, the lightning leaving another scorch mark at Winnie’s feet.

He stood again and lurched, falling to his knees. The world moved slowly and the air was hot and heavy around him. “ _Winifred_ –!” he called, reaching out, and one more scream echoed off the cavern walls as he, too, crumbled to dust. 


	17. Them

The cavern had started out quiet. 

At first, all Winnie could hear was the rush of blood in her ears and her own terrified breath as she stared down at the two piles of bones that had settled in the dust before her. It was difficult to comprehend; her mind couldn’t quite seem to catch up with what had just happened. Maxwell’s remains lay at her feet, no more than a pile of ash. He’d crumbled almost the moment he’d been released from the throne, and she had been taken in his place. 

Further off, closer to the burning pillars, was another pile of remains. She stared down at it for a long time, the weight of what she’d just witnessed barely scratching the surface of her understanding. He’d just collapsed. So much had happened so quickly, and she tried to put the pieces in order, but she kept coming to the same conclusion: She’d just watched him die. 

No, no, that couldn’t be it. There had to be some other combination of events, some other explanation, something she was missing. Whatever it was, she was sure the skeleton peering at her from the darkness wasn’t going to have the answer. 

His backpack still clung sadly to his shoulders, his form collapsed in the dirt, a pile of bones as though they’d been thrown haphazardly in what someone thought a human shape might look like. The longer she looked down at it, the more desperate she became for some sort of explanation. Her chest ached and she could feel a lump growing in her throat. 

Despite this, though, she was remarkably calm, she thought, for someone who’d just watched her friend and fellow survivor rapidly decay in front of her. 

She could see it starkly in her mind’s eye - the flash of lightning, the panicked look as he tried to reach her again, the sudden stop as he dropped to the floor. He’d looked surprised - she supposed he hadn’t expected for him to drop dead then, either. She was still surprised; what felt like hours had passed and she could still barely wrap her head around what had happened. 

She took a deep breath, trying to adjust her position as the throne held her fast. She closed her eyes, compartmentalizing everything that had happened. 

Maxwell was gone.

She was stuck here.

Wilson was dead. 

She didn’t want to open her eyes; she didn’t want that thought echoed through the room, with his remains staring up at her. 

She leaned back in the throne, ceasing the useless struggling against its hold as she took a moment to gather her wits. The back of the throne was cold, just like the rest of the shadows that slithered restlessly beneath her touch. It was almost unnoticeable, but it indeed moved, just as she’d suspected looking up at it while Maxwell had been where she was now. She didn’t know what it was, but Gods, she didn’t like it. It was almost like that thing that had attacked her outside of the Obelisks, but more solid, more controlled, more intelligent.

At least whatever the throne was, it didn’t seem to be hurting her. It was malicious, sure, that much was obvious. It had her trapped - she could barely move an inch without some sort of pull back. But no matter how much she struggled, it wasn’t hurting her. It was odd, almost, that such a cruel thing would be so patient. It made her uneasy, waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, as she waited for it to lose patience all together. 

She took an unsteady breath, trying to calm her nerves as she steeled herself. Slowly, she opened her eyes again. 

He was still there. 

Her gaze lingered at the sockets for a moment, as though they were staring at each other, but she had to pull her eyes away, looking out into the darkness to her left rather than stare down at him. 

It was a pity. He’d told her about his arrival to the island - he suspected he’d been there for upwards of two years once she’d arrived. He’d survived out there all on his own, facing Gods only knew what horrors he’d told her stories about. He’d struggled for two years to keep himself alive against all odds plotting against him, and all for nothing. He was dead. 

It was cruel and unfair; he hadn’t deserved this - she was the one who’d put the key in the box like Maxwell had said. She was the one who the throne had taken in Maxwell’s place. Wilson could have just been let to walk away, been left alone, just been allowed to go back to his camp and forget any of this had even happened. She was sure he would have preferred it; she certainly would have. 

But no, no, she knew it was only to be expected from this place. Nothing that happened here was ever fair or reasonable. Each step they’d taken in their journey to get home had only led them deeper and deeper into misfortune, and this was just the culmination of all that had happened to them - to him! What more fitting way to derail his attempts to return home than to snatch any chance away from him? The world they found themselves trapped in was heartless, and something - whether it be the Divines, or Fate, or some Evil - had decided that he should receive the brunt of their wrath, and now he was dead.

_ Oh, stop saying that!  _

She didn’t want to think of it, truthfully. It was too gruesome to think about, coupled with the fact that there was nothing she could do about it. 

_ That wasn’t entirely true of course.  _

But surely it was! The poor man lay dead before her, and besides that she was strapped down, unable to even help him if there were some way she could have. A lump formed in her throat, constricting her chest as it suddenly became hard to breathe. Things were beginning to catch up with her no matter how much she didn’t want them to. A dull panic began pushing its way up through her chest, through her throat: He was dead. He was  _ dead _ ,  _ oh Gods he was dead _ …

Her breath hitched.

_ She was a stupid, short sighted girl. So concerned with one little detail, she couldn’t see the bigger picture here. Hadn’t she listened to Maxwell? The things They would show her, the power she would have.  _

She didn’t have any power; not without her book of shadows, tucked just out of her reach in the backpack that lay amidst the skeleton across the caverns. Without her knowledge and her spells, she had about as much magic at her disposal as the pile of bones did. 

_ Useless, stupid girl. All this time she’d been so dependent on her magic, and now she had the chance to do something truly powerful, and she hid behind her dumb little book. She failed to realize the amount of power she possessed now. And all she had to do, was reach out…  _

She couldn’t reach out. She was strapped down, constrained, trapped--

_ But she didn’t need to move to reach out. Her physical body was useless compared to the body that They gave her. She was a being made of magic and power, with Them backing her, lending her more mysterious power than all of her coven combined, she could do anything.  _

Winnie held her breath, and promptly realized that it was the last sound that had lingered in the cavern. With the silence creeping in, she could hear voices carried through the caverns, creeping along the craggy rock that surrounded her. Her eyes grew wide as she stared down at Wilson’s remains, the voices growing to a crescendo around her. There were whispers, incessant and demanding. 

_ Reach out. _

_ Command this world like the witch you are. Use your magic and Their power to bend this world to your will. With Them, you can do anything. _

_ You can do  _ anything _.  _

_ Bring him back. _

Bring him back. 


	18. Square One

There was an instance, where suddenly nothing existed. It was quiet, calm, cool. So much that had plagued him since he came to this island was suddenly no more. He not only simply didn’t care; he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Come to think of it, he couldn’t bring himself to do much of anything. He wasn't quite certain of his circumstances, but he supposed that was the funny thing about being dead. Not that he knew once it had happened. Again, one’s powers of perception were a little dampened.

But then.

Then there was a brief, sudden flash of everything. Blinding light - _scalding_ , actually, his whole body burned as if he’d suddenly been flung into the sun- and then a sharp pain, everything aching as he hit the ground.

Maxwell groaned, his arms barely lifting him as he pushed upwards against the grassy earth. Before he’d even made it to his hands and knees, there was the familiar chittering of spiders. God, he hated those things; always had. Vile, dirty little critters that scuttled about like they owned the place. It hissed at him, and as he peeked up at it, he could see the shifting shapes of the rest of the pack in the dim evening light.

He moved slowly, trying to regain his bearings on top of watching the curious pests and trying to parse out what had happened. Winifred had taken the bait, swallowed it hook, line, and sinker, and inserted that blasted divining rod into the keyhole. The throne had taken her, and next thing he knew, he was here. He had to admit, hardly any of what he remembered had been expected.

Out of the corner of his eye, there was a dark shape. He reached towards it, dragging it across the grass as he struggled briefly to pick up the book. It was old and powerful and he felt a surge of confidence knowing whatever had happened had left him with it in his possession.

He threw open the pages, his vision still blurry as his head swam.

The Codex Umbra.

Despite everything that had happened, Maxwell wouldn’t have given this book up for anything. Not even his freedom, it seemed, as he was stubborn and strong-willed enough to drag it from the Their grasp even in resurrection.

He supposed, in its crudest form, that’s exactly what it was. No doubt that naive excuse for a witch didn’t know what she was doing. There was a sense of horrible cosmic irony to it all, really. He’d finally managed to escape the hold of the throne, only to be jettisoned right back under Their thumb, at the whim and whimsy of a new puppeteer who apparently couldn’t even be bothered to learn to keep a tighter grasp on the power afforded to her.

He, on the other hand, spent an eternity atop that throne, poring over every scrap of knowledge there was to be had. They had provided him with all he had needed, and though he’d always gotten the impression that there were things They kept from him, it hadn’t mattered to him then, and it didn’t matter to him now. All that mattered was that those centuries of arcane knowledge remained with him. He was still the most powerful thing here - smarter than any of the beasts he’d created, and more magic at his fingertips than that magical mistake of a girl could ever hope to possess. With a wicked grin, Maxwell threw out a hand towards the encroaching spiders; though they were too dim-witted to know it, they were always his game between games, when there were no poor souls scrambling through his woods to entertain him.

A simple shadow would swallow the little creatures whole. It jumped from his fingertips like a black flame, curling upwards into the air before dying out. It took him a moment to realize what had happened - that the spider was still crawling towards him, its friends in tow, that his shadows had dissipated into thin air.

Carefully, he rose to his feet, dragging the codex umbra with him.

Well, drat.

He could hear the hiss of another nest off to his left - no doubt they were coming, too, to investigate the commotion so close to their nest. They grew fearless by the dusk, freely venturing from their nests to pester any unfortunate passersby. Regrettably, that included him now.

After being strapped to a chair for the last several millennia, Maxwell couldn’t say he was exactly the most abled candidate for running for his life. His body had somehow regained something resembling its former state - though he was still frail, he was hardly as weak as he’d once been. What must have been millennia upon the throne had left him a sorry excuse for a living thing - his body had failed him the moment They had released him in favor of the witch.

But as spry as he could be considered compared to that form of himself, he was still no match for the spiders. A flash of yellow, a hiss, a jump, and Maxwell had to take to his heels again, trying to lose the warrior through the thick of the trees. Before long there was a stitch in his chest that kept him from catching his breath, and while he’d managed to lose his attackers, short-sighted as the beasts on this island were, he was faced with the looming fact that he had absolutely no idea where he was.

To be quite honest, he wasn’t even sure this was the same island he’d had his puppets navigating. They all looked the same, and without specific landmarks, it was so hard to tell. If he could just find a pig village, or one of his clockwork rooks. If he could find out where those were, he might be able to determine if he knew this world. He highly doubted Winifred had the power to recreate the worlds like he had. She was too new - no matter what her magic was like, it would take time for her to learn from Them. Even he had dabbled with his new powers alone in this world for longer than he cared to admit before reaching out to the other world - the world he’d come from.

And if that were the case - and he was fairly sure it was - he only had so long to figure out how to get off this accursed island before she started pulling the strings. Once she figured out how to manipulate the world - the animals, the shadows, the weather, the puppets themselves - he was certain there wouldn’t be a moment’s rest, let alone enough time to formulate some sort of escape.

Maxwell panted and wheezed as he came to a slow, stumbling halt. He looked about himself as the sun began to set somewhere across the horizon - the cloud cover made it so difficult to tell what direction he was going, made it impossible to find the sun.

But oh, that was the least of his worries.

Out of the corner of his vision, he could already see Them watching, lurking in the shadows of reality, half-existing as they skirted around him. He grimaced, pulling himself together.

He wasn’t foolish - no matter who sat on that throne, she was still out here. Though for a moment he froze, unable to move as he realized just how grand a change in perspective this was, He knew he had to find light soon. The darkness wasn’t kind.

Not anymore.

He trudged through the dusk, flipping through the codex in the dim light of the dying day as he went. There had to be something in this book that he could use. It was almost laughable - an eternity ago, he’d felt like this book had held every answer to every question mankind could ever ask. Now, he’d just settle for a damn clue.

The sun disappeared, leaving the sky an inky black, and the shadows began to creep inwards. She would follow close behind, and when she found him…

He grit his teeth, preferring not to think much about that. He much preferred to dwell on more practical things, like how to stay alive through the night. It was risky business, getting on your feet in this world with a new puppet master on the throne - there was no telling if your next mistake would be your last. He either had to adapt quickly, find a source of light and wait out the night time, or hope for a miracle.

 

* * *

 

 

Nighttime was beginning to settle around the camp and Wilson felt largely unproductive; that wasn’t a good thing to feel, in this place. Usually it meant you were struggling, or would be struggling very soon. He’d managed to get something resembling a camp set up, though, and he tried to put that feeling of foreboding from his mind. After all, he had other things to worry about than a feeling of lost progress.

Besides that, he was, by all logic, doing rather well. In the few hours he’d been given before nightfall, he’d managed to construct a small fire pit and a science machine - on top of the fact that he wasn’t starving, he’d say he was doing pretty well for the first night back in the forest. He wasn’t foolish enough to assume that any of the old campsites were still standing - and he certainly wasn’t stupid enough to go looking for them with so little time before nightfall. So he’d improvised; he’d built and planned as he always had, and this is what he had to show for it: a handful of carrots, birch nuts, and frustration.

He dug the heel of one palm against his eye, sighing heavily. If he were quite honest, a lot about this situation had thrown him. He just don’t know what to make of it. So far this island had been unkind and full of perils, but this was the first time that Wilson could honestly say that it was downright treacherous. Maxwell, of course, he already knew was an evil, manipulative monster. Every time Wilson tried to close his eyes for months, he’d see that unsettling grin and cunning spark in his eyes - sometimes, even worse, he’d be greeted with dreams of a half-formed puppetmaster, more animal than human, or… whatever it was that Maxwell could be considered.

Wilson grumbled and shook the thought aside. He was sure whatever conclusion he came to would just be another headache to worry about. He didn’t care what Maxwell was - all that mattered was that he was a fiend.

Wilson bristled, hearing something off in the distance of the darkness. His stomach sank as he choked down the bite of carrot he'd taken. He'd gotten very good, since his stay here began, at hearing the monsters in the night time. He'd chosen a spot for his campfire out of sheer necessity rather than thoughtful strategy - though he had a general idea of the area, he hadn't taken into account what monsters may have been lurking in the woods when he'd settled down. Perhaps there was a spider nest nearby, or else a pig hut whose occupant was eager to leech off of the light his tiny campfire provided. Were it the latter, Wilson might not have been so on edge, but the pig villagers were never so prone to lurking in the dark.

Remaining cautious and no little amount suspicious, Wilson grabbed his axe. It was hastily put together, and he was fairly certain it was near broken anyway, but the sense of protection it offered, if nothing else, was welcomed. He threw another log on the fire, waiting a beat as it crackled and flared, the new kindling widening Wilson’s range of vision around his little impromptu camp.

He'd been on this island for a long time, and he'd gradually come to expect monsters lurking in the dark, but this was beyond anything he could have prepared himself for. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was really seeing this or if frustration and insanity were setting in earlier than usual due to recent events, but either way, all it took was a split second; Wilson dropped his axe, teeth bared as he pushed up the tattered cuffs of his shirtsleeves and leapt for the man.

He collided with Maxwell with a shout as they both toppled backwards. He raised a fist, eager to finally give the old bastard the what for after all this time. He genuinely did not care about the shadows, or the beasts, or the powers that snake had at his disposal; he just wanted to get in one good shot, Damn it all, he’d start all over again in this hellish wilderness if he had to if it meant getting back at Maxwell.

Wilson felt fists bunched up in the front of his vest, grabbing on for leverage and dragging the scientist down as he threw his weight into the crooked magician. There was a heavy thwack as the scientist’s fist collided with the older man’s jaw, and Wilson wheezed as he felt a knee jab sharply up into his ribs. It was brief, but it was enough to throw the man’s attention. He coughed, and Maxwell pushed the heel of one palm up against Wilson’s chin.

Despite the two struggling in the dirt and the bushes at the edge of the light, Wilson could still hear it. A tiny, delicate sound, like an out-of-tune music box. His blood froze, and even Maxwell went quiet as the two strained their ears.

It was too late that he noticed it, a creeping shadow out of the corner of his eye, a great clawed hand reaching in steady increments towards the burning camp fire. Wilson couldn’t scramble to his feet quick enough, not with Maxwell holding fast to the front of his waistcoat.

He kicked himself free, stumbling and catching himself running in the dirt, feeling the grit beneath his fingers as he tried to pick himself up and keep moving. He watched with a cold dread as the shadowy claw closed in a fist around the campfire. There was a flicker, like a breeze passing through the flames, and the hand stole away the light. There was a thin plume of smoke smoldering up from the steadily dying embers.

He could hear it already, the rushing howl that carried on the wind. Trembling hands grabbed at the log he’d been sitting on only a few minutes earlier, tossing it into the fire pit.

He muttered beneath his breath as he sifted through the embers, trying to get it to catch. The man’s back stung with anticipation of being gored through again, either by the whispering darkness that was slowly closing over the makeshift camp, or by the demon struggling to his feet behind him. In his panic, he hadn’t forgotten Maxwell’s presence, but his axe lay several feet away where he’d abandoned it in favor of hand to hand combat. He didn’t know what the man’s capabilities extended to, but if this world was any indication - if the shadows were any indication - he had a sinking feeling that rekindling the flames was a pointless task.

The moment the log caught, bathing the camp in fire after the first few seconds of kindling in the flames, and Wilson braced himself. It wouldn’t take much to off him at this point. He’d woken up in the woods weak and half-alive to begin with, and his foolish fighting hadn’t helped his health any. He wiped blood from his nose and looked back over his shoulder, half expecting to see the familiar form of the game maker looming over him with the extravagant coat and the stench of a cigar.

Instead, there was just an old man, face smeared with dirt and clothes disheveled, looking exhausted and unsettled.

It wasn’t enough to quell the scientist’s paranoia, though, and as he stood, he plucked a stone from the fire pit, chucking it with all his might at Maxwell. It missed its mark by several feet, the throw weak and poorly-aimed in the stress of the moment. “Try it again, I dare you!” he snarled, “Touch my fire again and I swear I’ll kill you before that damned monster can even get here!”

In the dim light, Wilson couldn’t be sure, but he was fairly certain there was a flicker of disgust that flashed across Maxwell’s face, mere moments before the wind was knocked out of the mouthy scientist by some shadowy force that existed in the corners of his vision. Both he and Maxwell doubled over - which was odd, in his opinion, considering Maxwell wasn’t the one who had just been hit in the stomach by some demon. Maxwell bent over, propping himself up on his knees as he took a breath. That wasn’t so easy anymore now that the shadows were no longer his, and it was something that he was going to have to be careful about. Best not let the half-wit scientist catch on.

“If you’re really as smart as you claim to be, Higgsbury, you’ll learn to watch your mouth.”

He coughed into the dirt, sneering up at the dapper man with contempt. “Just keep your hands to yourself, you snake,” he ground out, raising himself to his feet again.

“Whether or not you’re inclined to believe me, the shadow hand wasn’t my doing. It was Them.”

“Them?” His voice held no small amount of criticism, doubting every word that came out of Maxwell’s lying mouth.

“I’d wager a guess They’re not too happy that She resurrected us. Once you make it to the throne room - that’s Their domain. They don’t appreciate their company leaving, though I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”

Wilson had a short temper with Maxwell, and snapped again. “What are you talking about - what do you mean _She_ res--” He stopped short, his heart sinking as a black lead filled his stomach, and all very suddenly it came back to him. Winnie was somewhere in that cave system, trapped on that hellish throne that Maxwell had tricked her on to.

He had known that the girl’s flights of fancy with her magic would get her into trouble one day on this accursed island, but he hadn't expected it to happen quite like this. If he were honest, he couldn’t say he’d expected any of this.

And now, the man standing before him was no longer the game maker. He didn’t pull the strings anymore, he didn’t control the world they were trapped in.

Winnie did.


	19. Poor Company

Wilson was exhausted. As if fending off the hounds and monsters and the ever threatening darkness wasn’t enough, now he had to fend off a constant headache. Maxwell was nothing short of insufferable - the man had a comment for every little thing that Wilson did, and it was just about driving him insane. To be quite honest, he couldn’t tell if the shadows in the corners of his vision were from his lack of sleep or his newfound company.

“You know, pal–” he started, and Wilson grimaced, curling up defiantly as he lay on the straw roll. He hated that most of all. “–for a genius scientist, you seem to have trouble following simple instructions. The wood, Higgsbury. Chop, chop.” Maxwell loomed over the smaller man, casting a shadow over him, and was amused to find that his simple instructions were frustrating him.

Wilson pushed himself up, scowling up at the magician as he tossed the nearest back pack at his feet. “Get it yourself,” he sneered. Maxwell wouldn’t tell him what he needed all this junk for. Every day it would be some new meaningless task - catching birds, chopping entire forests down, trekking south to the pig village with a week’s worth of rations to trade with the King for gold. It was a waste of time and resources, and what was worse was that Wilson was never quite sure how he consistently got shoehorned into being Maxwell’s errand boy. Today, he was determined not to give into whatever sly tricks he would try to pull.

“Now, Higgsbury. You and I both know I have better things to do in the interest of our humble camp than spend all afternoon chopping wood. You, on the other hand…”

“Look. I’m exhausted. You’re not the one who spent the entire night luring hounds away from the camp, were you? I’m going to sleep before your hounds realize they missed dinner.”

Maxwell tsked, “They’re not my hounds, Higgsbury. Do remember who the throne is holding captive. And at the pace you’re moving, I’m afraid to say she won’t be getting out of there any time soon.”

Wilson sat up again, squinting up at Maxwell with a grim suspicion on his features. “Don’t think I’m going to fall for that, you rat. You’ve done nothing but lie and cheat and manipulate since the wildly regrettable moment I met you.”

“I’ve done nothing of the sort,” he said sharply, seeming affronted. “I promised you secret knowledge that would open up a whole new world of possibilities. I promised Winifred safe passage away from the witch hunters to a place they wouldn’t find her. And I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she would end up exactly where she is now. I think you’ll find that I’ve been nothing but honest.”

“Honest? That’s the last word I’d use to describe you. You’re nothing but a - but a– a damn grifter!”

Maxwell grinned, a sly, wicked look as he smoothed the lapel of his suit. “Well then. That would make you the chump, wouldn’t it?”

The grifter, as Wilson so eloquently put it, was pleased to see his company’s face turn a bright red, almost the same hue as his tattered and dirty waistcoat. Maxwell didn’t know exactly how far his magic extended, but he was more than willing to test it if Higgsbury fancied another fight.

“You can complain all you want, Higgsbury, but the fact remains–” he reached into his suit jacket and pulled forth a piece of parchment; it seemed old, folded many times in many different ways. Wilson immediately distrusted it. “You’ll need me if you ever want to get her out.”

“I’m no fool, Maxwell,” he sneered. In Maxwell’s opinion, that was arguable. “You were trapped there. And the moment you got off that cursed throne, They took her! They– oh, listen to me! They!” he growled in frustration, thin fingers running through his hair, which sprung back instantly. He could feel his own sanity rapidly slipping, with all this talk of magic and monsters. “Point is, I’m not going to fall for your lies again!” He hooked an accusing finger at Maxwell’s impassive figure. “I’ll figure out a way to get Winnie off your damned throne, and then we’ll find a way home, just as we planned from the beginning.”

“Yes,” Maxwell cleared his throat, “because that worked out so well for you the first time around, didn’t it? If I recall correctly, your little theories and experiments are the reason she’s on that throne in the first place - weren’t they.” It wasn’t a question; instead, a scathing reminder.

Wilson felt a dread run down his spine like a chill. His blood boiled but he couldn’t in good conscience argue with Maxwell’s point. Winnie had vehemently tried to drag Wilson away from the door when he’d pressed the matter. His wild experimentation was what had started their journey through Maxwell’s game, was what had landed them in the throne room to begin with. Wilson still blamed Maxwell by and large for all the various misfortunes that had befallen the pair during their extended stay on the island, but he couldn’t help but feel, in that moment, that Winnie’s capture fell on his shoulders.

Maxwell smirked, taking Wilson’s silence as admission of guilt. “Exactly. Now, before you get her dragged down even further, stop your bellyaching and do something productive for once.” He handed the time worn paper to the scientist, who looked it over with a begrudging interest. “There aren’t many ways out of here,” he said, a small cloud of shadow exploding into existence above his open palm like a dark mushroom cloud. In its wake was left a book, full of the same sort of diagrams and spells and instructions as Winnie’s - only Maxwell’s were, undoubtedly, all the more sinister.

“I’ve gathered,” he said sourly. Wilson recognized bits and pieces, snippets of information that he happened to catch as Maxwell flipped through the pages of the book - the very same snippets of information that he’d been gifted so long ago in his attic. It was surreal to see it all again, in ink before his eyes. So this is where Maxwell had gotten it all from… “What makes you think this one will work?”

“I’ve been working on the schematics for centuries. Your short-sighted grasp of this world doesn’t even scratch the surface. They taught me things, in case you missed my dramatic monologue before we both died.”

Wilson visibly flinched at the man’s crude choice of words. He still didn’t particularly like to think about it. It was a strange cognitive dissonance that made being alive unpleasant and unnatural - something that he very much tried to avoid feeling. He had better things to focus on, after all, especially now with Maxwell here. “And you’re positive this will get us all out of here? Winnie included?” There was that familiar tone of doubtful skepticism in his voice as he gripped his chin, regarding the schematics and diagrams that Maxwell presented him with. It was complex, but what he understood about this world’s workings, it seemed reliable on the surface.

“It’s not a proven theory, mind you, but I’d wager it’s better than your plan.”

Wilson stared hard at the page, trying not to think about running the gauntlet again to reach the throne room a second time. Of course, that was about as far as he’d gotten in his genius plan, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

“What do you need?” he offered instead.

“Wood. Lots of wood. The portal isn’t going to be a small operation, you know.” he said, and before Wilson could protest there was an arm around his shoulders, drawing him in close to Maxwell, who had stooped down low to meet Wilson’s level. “And let’s be smart about this, alright pal? We’ll keep this between the two of us. Don’t need every crow, gobbler, and pig villager knowing about our plans, do we?”

That was certainly an odd request, but Wilson didn’t see any harm in it. He wasn’t inclined to strike up conversations with the pig villagers anyway; they creeped him out.

Maxwell held a hand out to shake; that also creeped Wilson out, but he figured it was strikingly less avoidable than talking to the pigs. With a grimace and an unpleasant sense of deja vu, Wilson shook the man’s hand, feeling a dread in his chest.

“Wonderful. Now, I imagine you want to get out of this miserable forest almost as much as I do. So.” Wilson hadn’t seen Maxwell pick it up, but he was suddenly handing the scientist an axe. He frowned up at him, but didn’t complain. If Maxwell’s strange portal design could get Winnie off that throne and get them home, then Wilson would chop down an entire forest if he had to.

Looking at the schematics, he very well might.

* * *

Five axes.

He’d had to build five more axes since he’d left the camp to run Maxwell’s errands. He was almost out of twigs, and that was always certain to cause problems in the immediate future. He was carrying about as much as he could, all in wood and logs he’d managed to tie together with some tall grasses he’d come across, making it easier to transport them if nothing else, but he was going to have to find some basic resources before he went back to camp - twigs and flint and stone - so that he could make more tools before Maxwell gave him his next impossible task.

He didn’t much appreciate the take-charge attitude, as though it had been Maxwell and not Wilson who had managed against all odds to survive the hellish world that had been built specifically to kill him. As though it hadn’t been Wilson who had feverishly built and tinkered away every free moment where he wasn’t fighting for his life, just to give himself an advantage. He didn’t appreciate Maxwell being cast the role of unlikely hero, with his plans - not when it was Maxwell’s fault that he and Winnie had ended up here in the first place.

The thwack of the axe echoed through the forest as Wilson started chopping down another tree. He’d lost count how many he’d chopped a while ago, but he knew that he was going to have to make another trip after this. Boards weren’t easy to make, and they needed a lot of Maxwell’s little project.

The sun was high and the afternoon heat was becoming almost unbearable. He’d caught fire once before in his laboratory back home, and it had felt kind of like this. He wiped his brow and took a deep breath, swinging his axe once more, the blade burying itself into the trunk of a particularly old looking tree. He tugged, finding the blade stuck fast.

Drat.

He tugged and struggled, trying to find the right leverage to pry the blade from the bark, but it wouldn’t budge.

Alright.

Wilson released the handle of the axe with a frustrated little huff, wiping absently at the sheen of sweat on his face as he gave the thing one last disappointed look, then cast his gaze to the sky. Evening was sure to be cooler, and he could use a drink and something to eat. He hadn’t been foolish enough to leave the camp without provisions, however meager they might have been. He retrieved them from his pockets and turned away from the stubborn tree, moving towards the unevenly hacked stump of what had been a tree all but an hour ago.

Suddenly, the heat wasn’t an issue; Wilson’s blood froze as he went stock still, staring at the stump no more than ten feet away. It was plain and unassuming, but he knew he hadn’t brought one with him for this little excursion - he’d not yet had the opportunity to make one, with Maxwell’s arrival. And yet, sitting on the stump was a neatly placed backpack, seemingly full.

The last time he’d had a backpack with him wasn’t since–

“Consider it a gift.”

The seeds and carrots he’d been carrying dropped to the ground as he jumped in alarm, his nerves already on edge as the voice came out of nowhere. He leaped, spinning to face the noise and stunned before his feet had even hit the ground again.

“W–Winnie?” came his own confused voice. He was certain it was her, of course, but there were several things that made him doubt his own perception. He knew this place was infamous for playing tricks, and now that the trickster himself was out and about, there was no telling what kind of strange hallucinations he was going to have out here. More than that, though, was the fact that he saw the throne bind her. She’d been unable to escape, trapped by whatever horrific force that constrained her - that was the one thing he believed Maxwell about.

“The one and only!” She gave him a sharp and toothy grin, sending a chill down his spine. She was strikingly different. Whatever she’d done down in the caverns, she’d somehow managed to get her cloak back. It hung from her shoulders, which had the same strange hooked design as Maxwell’s suit. It was an unpleasant and uncomfortable parallel that drew his attention to her appearance. She seemed wholly more malevolent than she had before, with the warm red removed from her blouse, her hair underneath her pointed hat was wild, and almost seemed to flicker like flame in the blurry corners of his vision.

She looked, plainly put, a disturbing amount like Maxwell had.

“But- I don’t understand, how are you - here?” he stuttered, trying his best to ignore the blatant changes in his former companion. “I thought you were trapped!”

“Oh, no, Higgsbury, I’m still on that throne,” she hummed idly. “This is just a trick They taught me. Whether or not you believe in magic, Theirs - mine - is powerful.”

He swallowed thickly, unsure how to respond. “It’s… uhm… nice.” Logically, he should have been overjoyed to see Winnie again, but a prominent part of him couldn’t help but feel very keen on not upsetting what was most likely the literal embodiment of evil in front of him.

Her lips turned up and she shook her head. “I know, this isn’t what either of us planned. Getting ourselves home never included that little adventure we had. But look at the bright side. At least Maxwell’s not in control anymore, right?”  

Wilson had to admit, that was something he’d briefly considered. Without Maxwell on the throne, he couldn’t control the world like he once could - but given the last few nights, he wasn’t sure how much an advantage having Winnie at the helm was. A part of him felt despite her chipper demeanor, this was a sort of test. What was the right answer? Having her where she was, trapped in the dark without any certainty she’d get home and the shadows whispering to her like they did to Maxwell, was the stuff of nightmares. Of course he wasn’t glad she was there. But Maxwell being stripped of the vast majority of his power was a welcomed change. He couldn’t make their lives a living hell any more - at least not more than anyone else might be able to.

But he struggled with his answer, and he knew if he took too long, she would notice, and whether or not they had been friendly with one another before she’d taken to the throne, he had no way of telling what kind of person she was in this clearly altered state.

He cleared his throat. “It’s certainly… a change.” He nodded sagely, hoping his meager acting would be enough for her to overlook the general neutrality of his answer.

Winnie’s pointed shoulders drooped, a kindly smile spreading across her face. “You don’t trust me,” she said, and Wilson’s heart nearly stopped beating in his chest. She spoke quickly, noticing his discomfort. “I understand, honest! Being in Maxwell’s place now… I wouldn’t trust me either! But it’s different. I control this whole world now. I can make things better, I can help!”

The scientist worried at his bottom lip, squinting at the apparition before him, trying to sum her up. “Help? Not to offend, Miss Winnie, but your hounds haven’t exactly been helpful these last… six nights, now.”

She grimaced, looking embarrassed. “I… I know. And I’m sorry, about them. I’m not trying to hurt you, I promise, it’s just - it’s a little hard, to get used to. I still have a lot to learn about controlling Them. Fifteen hounds… may have been a bit excessive…”

“You think?”

“But I swear, they weren’t there for you!”

He thought for a moment. “Maxwell, then?”

She hummed and nodded.

Wilson shifted, moving towards the tree stump, looking down at the back pack she’d brought for him. Despite her kind gesture, something about her words sat uneasily with him. She’d sent those hounds to kill Maxwell, to tear him apart like he’d watched them tear apart an unfortunate tall bird mother. Night after night after night she’d sent them, and he got the feeling she’d send more if he didn’t step in.

“Why are you trying to kill Maxwell?” he asked slowly, the words bitter as they came from his mouth. Wilson could think of half a dozen reasons off the top of his head, just from the last week they’d spent together.

She had just about the reaction he’d expected her to. For the tiniest fraction of a second she seemed absolutely flabbergasted that he’d even suggest there was a reason to not kill the man, but she quickly pulled herself together, the flicker around her edges clearly visible as she bristled. “What do you mean, why? Wilson, I know a lot’s happened since the door, but he’s still the reason we’re here! He’s the reason I’m trapped on this throne, why you’re trapped here! Why wouldn’t I? We’d never have to worry about his tricks again!”

“It just… seems a little aggressive, for you. Don’t get me wrong! I’m about as happy he’s here as you are, but… I don’t know. Maybe he can prove useful. He was in charge of this place for a long while before you took over… ah, loosely speaking, of course,” he added quickly.

“You don’t understand. He’s not supposed to be here. I told you, this is new magic, I don’t have a handle on it all yet, and I never meant to bring him back!”

“So it was you. Maxwell said you resurrected us, but… understandably, I had a hard time believing it…”

“Yes, it was me, but I’d only meant to bring you back! But if Maxwell’s alive… I don’t trust him. I just don’t. Somehow, he’ll find a way to ruin things.”

“Ruin things?” he chirped, taken aback. “Winnie! We’re still trapped on this island - and to boot, you’re trapped goodness knows how many feet under ground tied to a chair! Quite honestly, I don’t think he can ruin things any more than he already has!”

“You don’t understand!” There was a quiet tone of stress and desperation in her voice, her hands clawed as she tried to get him to listen to her. “They told me. Maxwell won’t want to stay out there, just long enough to figure out how to make his game better, harder! When he’s got what he wants he’s going to come back and take the throne again and then what, Wilson? He has to stay dead! If I don’t kill him, somehow, he’s going to make our lives hell here!”

She sounded utterly convinced of Maxwell’s plan, his grand scheme to take back the throne after what the man said was centuries of playing King. Wilson got the distinct sense that Maxwell was hardly eager to go back, but there was no reason to trust him; not immediately, anyway. What Winnie said could very well be true, knowing Maxwell’s penchant for theatrics.  

He sighed, grabbing the backpack as he contemplated the situation. It was a very delicate game he was playing, juggling two bombs that were liable to blow up in his face at any given moment. He, truthfully, had no reason to trust either of them - not anymore, at least, with Winnie’s unhinged, shady disposition dominating her previously reasonable and bright disposition.

“Wilson,” she started, her voice very different, somehow wrong. “I’m not expecting you to say yes. You don’t have to! But I am asking you for your help. I need to get rid of Maxwell, to make sure we both stay safe here.

“Listen. I’ll help you, but you really need to stop sending the hounds after him. Invariably, I’m the one who gets chased into Beefalo territory, not him.”

“Done,” she agreed quickly, holding her hand out for him. No negotiations, no tricks, no convoluted conditions - just a handshake.

It took him a moment, but he clasped her hand tightly, feeling ice.

“Then it’s a deal.”


	20. A Rock and a Hard Place

There was something wildly unnerving about being caught in the middle as he was. Wilson had made a deal with every devil on the island - he’d joined forces with Maxwell to build a portal, to escape the forest and drag Winnie from her newfound queendom, and he’d promised Winnie that he’d murder Maxwell in cold blood.

It was something that Wilson considered deeply with every word that came out of the man’s mouth.

“I would think, generally speaking, that one might not want to run headlong into a spider’s den. But once again, Higgsbury, you defy all expectations.” He sighed like an overtaxed babysitter, leaning under the shade of a tall pine tree as Wilson trudged back into the camp looking a little worse for wear. It hadn’t exactly been a nest of spiders, per se. They largely avoided him - he could take a wild guess at why, though. He’d be lying to himself if he said it wasn’t nice, to not be hunted every moment of every day by birds and bees and dogs that wanted to kill him, wildly unlike how Maxwell’s reign treated him.

But he knew it came with a catch. Or rather, a few catches. Not only was it a stark reminder that his old companion was currently trapped in a hellish nightmare throne room, probably being goaded by creatures that not even he properly understood yet, but it was also an eerie testament to his poor choices and the two conflicting alliances that loomed over him. No matter what he did, at least one of them was going to be cross with him, and quite frankly he wasn’t sure who it would be worse to upset.

Winnie at least seemed amicable towards him, but she was in charge of the world now, and seemed very unlike herself so far that she was eager to have someone killed.

Maxwell was - well, Maxwell was Maxwell. Crossing him was as good as signing his own death certificate, though with Winnie at the helm he wasn’t quite sure what that meant anymore. Reanimating the dead - a well and true resurrection - was apparently something she could do now. He was still trying to wrap his head around it, if he were honest.

Point was, he had a decision to make, and he’d either have to make it quickly or do a damn good job of bluffing his way through this. He was stuck with Maxwell, there was no doubt about that, and he wasn’t too keen on upsetting the man in any way, shape or form. Although Maxwell wasn’t exactly pulling his weight as far as their base of operations went, he was still a threat to be considered, in Wilson’s eyes.

“Merms,” Wilson said dourly. “Damn things chased me clear out of the swamp.” He shucked his waistcoat, which was stained with blood, sweat, dirt - and now slime. The swamp was a vile place full of nightmarish creatures, most of which were still buried beneath the mud, having been watching him from their hiding places, waiting for him to trip and stumble, or to be struck down by an aggravated tentacle.

“Unfortunate,” Maxwell offered, sounding highly uninterested. “I hope you managed to get the reeds before they chased you away. It would be a shame if you had to go back to the swamp because you couldn’t gather the resources I sent you out for.”

Wilson seethed, hands curled into fists momentarily as he frowned up at Maxwell. His smug condescension was almost unbearable. Wilson liked Winnie well enough to begin with, and even despite the new whole ‘reign of evil’ thing she was dabbling in these days, she was still more palatable than Maxwell. If it weren’t for the prospect of a way home - a real way home! - and the chance to pull Winnie off that horrific throne of nightmares, he would have happily gone along with her plan. But as it were…

“What else do we need? I want to get this over with as soon as possible. The sooner we get Winnie and the two of us can be rid of you, the better.”

“Of course, of course… Though, I regret to tell you it’ll be some time before the portal is finished. We’re working against the odds here, pal. Once we start building, your friend on the throne is going to notice. When you’re where she is, you see everything.”

Wilson grimaced, not having thought about the prospect of ever-watching eyes before. It was wholly unpleasant to think of how many times Maxwell had probably watched Wilson struggle out in the woods - the number of times he’d nearly bled out or starved to death, the number of winters he’d endured half-frozen and trying to stay awake in the night. The look on Maxwell’s face in that moment suggested the very same, and Wilson felt a pressure building in his chest.

“So you see, pal, we’re going to have to be careful about this. Right now it just looks like we’re stocking for winter - that’s exactly what she’ll think. And with you, she’ll expect as much useless tinkering as you can fit in a day without starving to death, so the preparations should be easy enough to slip past her. I can’t tell you how many broken inventions I watched you bring into pointless existence since I brought you here. I’m sure she won’t find it out of the ordinary.”

“My broken inventions are the only reason I stayed alive on this god-forsaken island, Maxwell! If it weren’t for my scientific genius, I would have been eaten alive by a hound or crushed to death by that monstrosity you sent every winter!”

“Ah, yes, the deerclops… another great point. We’re going to have to build defenses for the portal long before we build the framework itself. Once she catches wind, she’s going to send everything she can, no doubt,” he scratched idly at his chin, looking about their meager camp site. “A lightning rod, just north of the fire pit, I think, nice and inconspicuous… and a telelocator for the giants, of course…”

“I can’t believe I have to listen to this,” Wilson grunted, “Your years on that blasted throne must have shook something loose, listen to you! What in Tesla’s great name is a damned ‘telelocator’?” he spat. “It’s madness, all of it! And you expect me to go along with your plans like you’re not a basket case that’s tried - numerous times! - to murder me. And here I am! Going along with you like you’re not a basket case that’s tried - numerous times! - to murder me! Maybe I’m the daft one here…”

“Daft? Perhaps. Idiotic? Most certainly. Maybe you didn’t hear me the first dozen times I’ve had to tell you,” Maxwell started, beginning to lose his extremely thin patience with the funny little scientist. “Unless you spontaneously gain the natural ability to jump between dimensions of reality - and trust me, you’d never survive that little science experiment even if you could figure out how - you’re stuck here. And you need me and my knowledge of this world if you ever want to get home. Is it getting through your ridiculous hair yet? You do as I say, and maybe - maybe - you might have a shot of ever seeing that pathetic little cottage I pulled you from again.”

Wilson grit his teeth as he listened to Maxwell, feeling that pressure in his chest suddenly pop. “She wants you dead, Maxwell!” he shouted, standing straight and still barely coming to the man’s chest as he squared up against the man, jabbing a finger in his face. “And I’ve been saving your sorry ass since you showed up! All those hounds weren’t a coincidence and you of all people know it! She wants you dead! And you know what? So do I! So do I! You dragged me away from my home and my life and my work and dumped me out here to die, and now I get to carry you like the most ungrateful dead weight in the world!”

“Of course she wants me dead, you idiot!” Maxwell threw Wilson backwards, watching as the man stumbled to keep on his feet. “I wasn’t supposed to be brought back to life! You think she’d want someone running around out here who knows all of her secrets? All of her powers? Her weaknesses and failings? They wouldn’t want that, so neither will she. But you…” he sneered, looking displeased with the little scientist, his pointed shoulder pads hunching upwards as he looked down at Wilson. “…I refuse to believe that you have enough cognitive foresight to understand that.”

The air shimmered around him, and the shadows seeped from the ground, pulled into his hands by some unnatural force, curling around his fingers and elongating into a dark cutlass that somehow still glinted in the sunlight. Though the motion was fluid and simple, Wilson had a dreadful feeling that it wouldn’t be so yielding if Maxwell were to run him through.

“What would you like to hear? That I talked to her? That’s right, Maxwell, she found me, and I talked to her! We had quite the pleasant chat for her being the bloody queen of nightmares now! And she offered to help me! I don’t need you! And to be honest, throne or no throne I still trust Winnie a thousand times more than I trust you and your portal!”

“Why? Do you think she’s going to get you home? Do you think that after I’m dead, she’s not going to get bored, just like every sorry bastard who’s sat on that throne has before her? And when I’m dead, and she’s bored… who do you think she’s going to want to play with?”

The words chilled the blood in Wilson’s veins. He didn’t want to believe it. He would have liked to think that Winnie wouldn’t be so cruel. He maybe even fancied they were unlikely friends! But the certainty with which Maxwell spoke of boredom… “She’s not like you, you know. She’s not a monster. She’s just–”

“Trying to kill me?”

Wilson swallowed thickly.

“You have to admit, Higgsbury, that doesn’t sound like her, does it?” he said, lightly, as though he were discussing the impossible weather. “The little witch who brought you food as a thank you for fixing her turned ankle, who picked more flowers than she could carry. Does stone cold murder really sound like her cup of tea?” Wilson didn’t say anything. After a moment of silence, Maxwell had his answer. “Exactly. Take it from me, pal, I know what kind of a predicament she’s in, and I’m telling you - that thing you met out in the woods, that thing that gave you back your backpack…” Wilson felt a small jolt of fear when he said this, realizing it hadn’t gone as unnoticed as he’d thought. “…she’s not Winifred. At least not the one you remember. They gave her a physical form outside of the throne room, but the person you met is every bit as Them as it is her.”

Maxwell could see that Wilson was rapidly losing his confidence. If he’d thought he’d known who’s side he was on before, it was abundantly clear that he didn’t now. “So as dead as you both may want me, I’m still your only chance. But by all means, pal,” he said grimly, brandishing his dark sword, his stands just as relaxed and unconcerned with Wilson’s anger as it ever had been, “that’s your choice to make.”  

He worried at his lip, trying to come up with some line of reason that supported taking Winnie’s side. Of course, Wilson couldn’t trust anything that Maxwell said, but at this point, he couldn’t exactly say he still trusted Winnie without question, either.

He let out a huff of breath, frowning deeply. “I told her I’d help get rid of you.” he ground out. “Exactly what do you suggest we do once she notices how not-dead you continue to be?”

“Ouch.” He stood upright, shoulders back, but otherwise didn’t seem as surprised as Wilson might have guessed he’d be to hear he and Winnie had conspired to kill him. “Lucky for you, I’m not the type to hold grudges, or else I might’ve taken offence to that. Winifred, on the other hand, most likely will not be pleased that her trusted friend and confidant has decided to stab her in the back. If I were you, I’d keep an eye out for hounds in your very near future.”

Wilson squirmed uncomfortably; Maxwell grinned, the sword evaporating into thin air as the shadows dispersed.

“Then it’s settled,” he continued. “We’ll move forward with my plans, and maybe if you don’t make any more deals with the embodiment of evil and darkness, we all might make it off this island in one piece. Do you think you can handle that, Higgsbury?”

He’d very much have liked to not have to coexist with the mouthy gentleman opposite him, but Wilson had to admit he had a point. As much as he wanted to trust Winnie, Maxwell and his ridiculous, suicidal portal plan was the best shot any of them had of getting home.

There was a long pause, and Wilson wiped absently at his face, displeased to find that his beard was beginning to grow back. There was another sigh. “Don’t make me regret this.” He ground out,  “And just for the record, I still trust her more.”

Maxwell grinned, a smug, self-satisfied look.

“I think I’ll live.”


	21. A Winter's Tale

Despite Wilson’s paranoia and Maxwell’s conceited assertions, Winnie kept her promise. Aside from being a point of guilt on Wilson’s part, knowing that he had no intention to uphold his end of the bargain, he was immensely relieved that she wasn’t so cruel, perhaps just yet, as to send more hounds in the subsequent nights. It gave Wilson a sort of lingering hope, that maybe she had been telling the truth, that maybe she really wasn’t trying to murder him. But Maxwell was diligent, and quick to squash any inkling of hope with stories of how the throne twisted your perceptions and intentions, how it made everything into a convoluted game of chess as They whispered to you - and even if Wilson wasn’t quite inclined to believe in Them just yet, he couldn’t shake the fact that Winnie had warned him about Them more than once, long before they’d ever found Maxwell. **  
**

As Maxwell had promised, gathering the necessary supplies for the portal was slow. Winter was already beginning to set in, and Wilson was working double time preparing for the freeze while running errands for Maxwell. The island was huge, but the former King seemed to know where Wilson would find the odds and ends and resources he was sent out for. It struck him as odd - this was almost certainly a different island than the one he and Winnie had met on, and different from any of the islands they’d visited afterwards. But Maxwell was ancient and, if Wilson had to guess, less than human by this point. He wasn’t going to question it.

Berries from the north, blue mushrooms from the swamp - be careful of the merm village, the faerie ring isn’t reached easily; four pick axes and twenty gold nuggets. Who needed that much gold? Wilson couldn’t imagine what Maxwell was planning to build with that much gold. From what Wilson knew of Maxwell and his islands, there was a fair chance it was just going to be a golden statue of himself. He hoped it would be something a little more useful. He’d mentioned a lightning rod - maybe it would be for that. A lightning rod certainly would be useful. He’d lost a good science machine and an old chest to a lightning strike once. Shame, too. The chest had burned up, taking a good portion of the rations he’d stored with it.

Wilson frowned deeply at the chest he’d built next to the contained camp fire. Come to think of it, with Winnie so unpredictable on the throne, maybe a lightning rod wouldn’t be a half bad idea. He hated to admit it, but to ignore the fact that Winnie had some degree of control over this place - the weather, the animals, the foliage - despite logic saying she couldn’t possibly do something as unrealistic as control the weather, to deny it would be foolish and dangerous, putting him at a disadvantage. It was ludicrous, but Wilson had observed it, even if understanding was still the next step.  

“Alright, Maxwell,” he said, dumping the contents of his backpack into the frozen grass. Along with the gold, this included a thermal stone, other miscellaneous rocks, two massive clumps of beefalo wool he’d managed to comb from their coats - he was hoping to make some winter wear from it, so that they might not freeze to death before finishing their project - and simple things like twigs and berries and the sort. “Twenty pieces of gold, like you said. What next?”

“That’s enough for me to make a lightning rod out of, but Winter’s almost here and we still don’t have a telelocator. I know you know how… unfortunate, the Deerclops can be, when you’re not prepared. Though to be fair, you were rarely prepared for any of my playing pieces.”

“Hey, Maxwell?” Wilson cut him off sharply, shrugging his backpack back on with a cross sort of expression.. “If you could stop with the chess metaphors for a moment? Maybe just long enough to explain what a damned telelocator is?” he snapped.

Maxwell sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been here for… what? Nearing two years, now, I believe? It’s incredible. Thick as a board and you somehow still managed to survive. Tell me, pal, what does a telelocator sound like it does?”

“Well…” Wilson started, considering it. He’d found it very useful in trying to understand Maxwell if he put aside his knowledge of the sciences and did his best to think like a madman. At the very least his strange little world made an effort to give the impression of sanity. By anyone else’s standards, a telelocator, by definition, would… Wilson cleared his throat, ears growing hot. “Ah. I see.”

“Fantastic. Try to keep up.”

“Well, hold on a minute!” Wilson piped up. “If this telelocator does what you say it does, how come we can’t just use it to go get Winnie and then get off this damned island?”

“The bigger picture, as always, Higgsbury. The telelocator can’t be used to traverse planes of existence. It’s not powerful enough. The portal is the same concept, almost, but supercharged. Instead of connecting two physical points within the same reality, it can connect two physical points on different planes of existence. Follow?”

“Mostly. It’s all a bit quantum for my liking,” he said, with no small amount of distaste.

“Noted. Next time I break us out of an inescapable reality bent on killing us, I’ll make sure to build a bridge instead. Now if you don’t mind, Higgsbury, the lightning rod?”

Reluctantly, Wilson gathered up the gold and headed to the spot they’d agreed the rod would go, making sure to complain thoroughly under his breath.

* * *

 

“There! One fully functioning lightning rod, perfect protection against the elements!”

“Well, one element.” Maxwell said shortly, examining the structure. It was a bit crooked. In fact, it was remarkably crooked, with many jutting angles and unpleasant edges. “You certainly took a few liberties with the blueprints I gave you.”

“Believe it or not, Maxwell, precision is a bit difficult with a stonework hammer. Not exactly a smooth finish.”

“Fair enough. Still.” he frowned at it. “A bit unsightly.”

Wilson had come to expect this kind of aesthetic nitpicking from Maxwell; he supposed it’d be quite the culture shock, going from the literal King of reality to a companion on this extended camping trip from hell.

Thing was, Wilson didn’t really care.

“So are you, mate, but I keep you around. Important thing is the project will stay protected.”

Maxwell didn’t say anything for a moment. The rabbit earmuffs they’d managed to make in their spare time worked wonder, but there was still something nagging at the back of his mind. Something important. Something…

“Big.” Maxwell muttered. He cast his gaze to the treetops, watching the last few dead leaves that were clinging to the branches rattle, some shaking off.

“Sorry?”

“It’s big.”

“What is?” Wilson was having no part of Maxwell’s cryptic mind games. “Go on, just spit it out!”

Maxwell pushed himself off the trunk of the tree, striding forward. “You’ve survived out here for more than a year. You’ve seen winter before. Puzzle it out, Higgsbury. What do you think it is?”

Maybe he wasn’t as quick to the draw as he used to be - and that was saying a lot, from what Maxwell remembered of him back in that dank little cottage attic he called his laboratory - but the puzzled look eventually fell away, melting into alarm as Maxwell’s cutlass materialized in his grip.

“I hope you don’t expect to stand there and look shocked about it all. I highly doubt Winifred will be kind enough to spare you twice.”

“But - she wouldn’t! She wouldn’t send that thing, not here!”

“She hardly has a choice. Let’s just say, I never expected to be dethroned, let alone resurrected here.” The man had a wry grin on his lips, an eerie look for him. A shiver ran down Wilson’s spine; it had nothing to do with the cold.

“Brace yourself, pal,” he said, as Wilson scrambled to grab a spare axe from its place buried in the ground not far from where he stood.

He felt it at last, the slight rumble in the earth. He’d been lucky enough in previous winters to escape the beast long enough for it to lose interest in him.  He wasn’t sure that they were going to be quite so lucky this time.

Wilson’s breath formed in little puffs in front of him. “Where is it? Where is it?”

“I think we’ll know when it gets here.” Maxwell said calmly, glad that Wilson’s own panic blinded him to the tone of unrest in his own voice. If he had to be honest with himself, he’d never anticipated fighting one of these beasts himself. He’d always found the humor in watching others scramble, trying to fight the gargantuan beast. He suddenly found it a lot less funny on this end of it.

“Any plan, pal?”

Wilson swallowed thickly, trying to form words as another tremor shook the ground, nearly knocking him off his feet. ‘Don’t die’ was a pretty solid plan. ‘Run’ was another, though slightly less realistic since the monster would destroy their progress on the portal with the swipe of one massive arm.

‘Pray Winnie resurrected their sorry arses’ was another.

The ground shook again, and in the near distance, Wilson could see treetops toppling, mowed down in the wake of a great pair of antlers.

“Well?” Maxwell shouted, over the cracking of lumber.

Wilson gripped his axe, jaw locked tight as he tried to come up with something - anything - that might help them. He knew the thing was monstrous, almost unstoppable save for the little sliver of a chance you could hack it down. He did not, however, have the faintest idea how they were going to stop it.

“Oh, fat lot of good you are, pal!” Was the last thing he managed to shout before the deerclops broke through the trees into their meager camp. The thing roared, a deafening sound that shook the treetops that had managed to survive its rampage, and raised its arms.

Great icicles rose from the snowy earth, massive spikes of ice that were spewed outwards as the deerclops brought its fists down. There was the splintering sound of wood as one of the icicles speared clean through one of the chests Wilson had built, scattering the contents across the snow.

It was all the scientist could do to jump out of the way in time; he hit the snow hard, the cold seeping through his waistcoat and chilling him as he looked up, trying to take stock of the situation, trying to think rationally, come at this problem from a scientific point of view, which was remarkably hard to do when you were at risk of being crushed alive by a half ton deer hoof.

He looked over at Maxwell, who was still on his feet, cutlass in hand and trying to carefully round the monster without being gored by any stray icicles. Wilson couldn’t be sure, exactly, but he was fairly certain that Maxwell was a bit older than he looked, which was really saying something. He looked a good fifteen, perhaps twenty years older than Wilson, and somehow he was still surprisingly light on his feet for a man whose daily regimen consisted of undoing Wilson’s flawless organizational system - which he supposed he’d have to redo, with all their belongings buried in the snow now. Hmm.

Wilson scrambled to his feet, plucking his axe out of the snow and telling himself that this was, perhaps, the stupidest thing he’d ever done.

And without another moment’s hesitation - as that would give him time to properly think about how he would most likely be dead within the minute - he lunged for the deerclops, axe raised.

Wilson put all of his power behind one short swing, sinking the axe into the beast’s leg. Maxwell followed suit, figuring if Higgsbury was going to be so brazen and tactless that there was really no point in trying to be strategic. It was either help the idiot scientist out or cart his dead body out of their camp site, and quite frankly Maxwell was never one for such dirty affairs.

Though he supposed this disgusting beast was no better. Probably had fleas, with all that fur.

Either way, the beast roared, throwing its arms up again. If one were to look closely - say, when they weren’t trying to weave between the stomping hooves of an angered killing machine - they might have seen the ice shimmering in the air around its fists, collecting like condensation as it prepared to strike again.

Wilson could hardly be bothered to watch for changes in the atmosphere some twenty feet above his head. But he did happen to notice Maxwell making a run for it; he figured if anyone knew the beast, it would be Maxwell - it was best to follow his lead, just until he managed to regain his wits about him and think straight, come up with some sort of stratagem instead of wildly attacking it like one of the hounds that often chased him through the woods.

He scrambled to get out of the way, clearing the area just in time as the monster brought its fists down again, The ground shook, and both men stumbled, trying to keep their balance.

Wilson stood straight, swallowing the distress that was trying to claw its way up his throat as he lifted the axe again, taking another swipe at the beast as he ran around it. It screeched, swiping at him, only to be cut off by a jab from Maxwell’s cutlass. The two of them kept the thing going in circles, never able to figure out which one would attack it next, and its attacks fell useless as they slowly found a rhythm.

Each hit took a toll on Wilson in more ways than one. Swinging the axe wasn’t easy with half of his upper body screaming bloody murder, leaving him unable to use his right arm for much more than balance, and his axe had seen better days as well. With every swing, with every hit to the deerclops, he could see the bindings coming looser and looser, bits of the flint being chipped away by the hardened keratin of the beast’s hooves.

He swung it once; twice; thrice, and the rock splintered. The pieces fell loose from their bindings, pattering to the ground in pebbles. Wilson stared at it for a moment, trying to comprehend what had happened. The axe was broken. The axe was broken and the deerclops was still rampaging. It was rampaging and angry, and Wilson’s weapon had broken.

Well.

That was unfortunate.

He opened his mouth, to call to Maxwell, inform him of his little predicament in hopes that he could distract the monster long enough for him to craft another weapon out of whatever he had nearby.

The words never came out, though. They never got the chance. Before Wilson could even get a syllable out, the beast swiped at him again, catching him hard across the chest as more icy stalagmites jutted from the ground. Wilson lost his balance as the creature swiped at him, and down he went.

He gasped as he hit the ground, feeling a tear as he landed square on an icy stalagmite, the sharp point goring him through. He lay there, face down in the dirt and the snow and the ice for a moment as he felt a hot rush of something run through his body. Heat seeped from him, into the snow, and he managed, pitifully, to remove himself from the icicle, leaving it red as he pulled away. It melted beneath him, sinking back into the earth as he lifted himself to his hands and knees, feeling a warm wetness spreading across his chest, through his waistcoat and shirt.

From down there, laying bleeding on the ground, the deerclops looked massive. It towered over him, huge and unstoppable, and very, very angry. He could hear Maxwell kiting it away somewhere in the distance, trying to get it to leave Wilson be - not that it mattered. He was having trouble catching his breath; no doubt a punctured lung. He grit his teeth, tasting blood.

What an unpleasant way to die. He’d always expected it out here, but he’d never thought it would be so morbid. He’d always just expected it to be quick and over and for the world to forget he’d ever even been there. Part of him had even hoped that he might live out the rest of his life back home, amongst his work.

No such luck.

Wilson shifted, gasping in the snow as he reached into his pocket. He was beginning to feel hazy, his sight swimming and tunnelling every so often as his last minutes ticked away. Cold fingers curled around an even colder stone - the heat stone he’d been carrying to ward off hypothermia. At least that was one good thing about this - he hadn’t frozen to death.

With the vestiges of his strength, Wilson hurled the rock - a great thing the size of a grapefruit - directly up at the deerclops, the moment it slammed its fists down into the earth again.

The rock arched through the air, slamming directly into the beast’s single, enormous eye. It reeled back, stumbling blindly as it clutched at its eye.

Wilson watched hazily as the splintered base of one of the trees it had demolished erupted from its chest.

Oh, the irony.

It was almost enough to make him laugh - or it would have been, if his lung hadn’t likely been collapsed by now. The beast gave one final bellow, before falling victim to the same injuries that Wilson was feeling the brunt of below.

He watched it fall.

Wilson closed his eyes.


	22. An Eye for an Eye

Well this was a dilemma.

Maxwell surveyed the camp grounds; the rough structure of the portal was still standing, but now he had two dead bodies on his hands - one far too massive to move out of the vicinity, and the other his only remaining pawn.

There goes the help.

The cutlass evaporated into thin air once more, leaving the man alone to ponder this predicament.

There was always work to be done - meat to strip from the deerclops and two bodies to haul away - but menial labor like that was beneath him. He was the king of the world, even if that naive little witch was on the throne. Such work was beneath him.

Well. Even if that were the case, no time like the present.

Maxwell frowned in distaste down at the body of Wilson Higgsbury, laying pitifully in the snow. His waistcoat had a darker patch of red around where he'd been wounded, and the snow around him was stained, but otherwise Maxwell might have thought that the funny little scientist was simply asleep. A bit paler than usual, perhaps, but asleep nonetheless.

With a definite distaste, Maxwell moved closer, stooping down and grabbing one slim wrist, intending to haul him away. But… no, that couldn't be right, could it? He paused, stooping down and pressing two long fingers to the inside of his wrist, waiting.

Well.

That was certainly peculiar, wasn't it?

“Alright, pal, what are you up to?” he asked sourly, standing up and looking down at the man.

Wilson seemed well and truly, thoroughly dead, but still had a pulse. With all his knowledge of the arcane and the shadows that inhabited this world, he could think of at least five different reasons off the top of his head. Didn't help him any, exactly. He supposed he'd just have to wait for him to start breathing again and ask Wilson himself.

Turn out he didn't have to wait too long. As he stood there curiously examining the felled man, Wilson took a great gasping breath, his chest heaving as he tried to fill his aching lungs.

He shuddered and shivered, perhaps not expecting the cold. When he opened his eyes, for the first time after dying- which, when you think about it is really an amazing feat - the very first thing he e greeted with was the familiar face of Maxwell. He gave a start, doing his best to scramble away from the man and only managing to slip on the snow and ice beneath his palms. But the Puppetmaster made no move, and slowly Wilson's wits returned to him. He gradually recalled their reluctant partnership, the portal, the plan. It was hard to forget the deerclops, exactly, with its impaled corpse laying a few hundred feet away. And if he remembered the deerclops…

Frantically, he pawed at his own chest. Well there was certainly blood. The copper smell hit his nose and he felt a rising sick as he registered it as his own. But that was an awful lot of blood, wasn't it? How on earth was it all his? No, no, it couldn't be all his, could it?

The snow beneath him was sticky and deep red and he wanted to get out of it as soon as possible. He scrambled to his feet, rising and staring down at the puddle for a moment. “W-what happened?” he asked Maxwell, who was rather impressed at the level of composure he displayed. Perhaps he was getting used to violent resurrection. Wouldn't that be unfortunate.

“You died. Rather spectacularly, I might add. I'd say you made a lot of classical authors very jealous.”

Wilson swallowed thickly, looking down at the puddle that had since seeped into the snow. “I… died. I died? That - that doesn't make sense, did Winnie- Ow!” He hissed, arching his back and hunching his shoulders as he clawed at his collar. Something was dreadfully hot, and the sticky bloodied shirt held it close against his chest. Careful, shaking fingers pulled something up in a flash of gold, and Maxwell eyed him curiously as he withdrew the gemstone necklace Winnie had given him back before she'd been trapped by the throne. He held it in one hand, looking at it rather sadly. The gem had been cracked, clean through the middle of the stone.

Somewhere past his confusion, he felt kind of bad for that. There was the ever present chance that she wouldn’t give a damn now, of course, being Queen of nightmares and whatnot, but this had been hers. He’d more or less forgotten about it until now, as it tried to scorch a hole through his chest. He held it at arm’s length; one hole in his chest was quite enough for one lifetime, thank you.

“Oh…” he said softly, his own breath materializing as a puff of fog in front of him, a miracle that was not lost on him. He pushed the notion away for now. “This had been hers… and I’ve gone and broken it.”

“You used it,” Maxwell said offhandedly. “What did you expect would happen? It’s not going to work forever.”

“What do you mean? I’ve not done anything to it! Not besides put a great crack in it, apparently.” He sounded dour about the whole ordeal, and Maxwell couldn’t help but find it odd that the cracked gem is the thing he’d get hung up on, after having just risen from the dead.

“Winnie gave that to you, yeah? Didn’t you ever wonder why she brought back so many of these stupid rocks?” he said, snatching the necklace from him and tapping the dulled gem with one finger.

“She said she liked them. They’re pretty little trinkets, nothing… important… and that’s hardly her, isn’t it? She used everything,” he sighed.

“Took you long enough, pal.” He tossed it back, having confirmed that it was, indeed, dead as a doornail. Or, to be a bit more circumstantial, dead as Wilson had been about two minutes ago.

“Alright, so she didn’t mean to bring me back to life this time. Is she going to be mad, like she was with you?” There was a tinge of worry to his voice, and Maxwell was glad to see he was finally getting the gist of their situation.

“Probably not. Like I said, I’ve been on the throne, and Winnie still seems to have some twisted idea of a friendship with you, so I’d reckon you’re safe, for now.”

“For now? Why for now?”

Maxwell grimaced, a tight look on his older features as he gave a jerky point over WIlson’s shoulder.

He turned; between him and the fallen deerclops was a dark figure. It struck him as odd long before it struck him as Winnie. He gave a start, taken aback by her appearance.

“Winnie!” he squeaked. “What-- what happened to you?” No, no, ladies rarely cared to hear something like that. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I like what you’ve done with your… arm.”

“Do you?” she asked, raising her hand to admire it herself. Her right arm seemed engulfed in shadow, flickering like flame as she moved and shifted. “It’s what happens when the shadows worm their way inside you. Do yourself a favor. Don’t get bit.”

He swallowed thickly. He didn’t plan to. Not after seeing the strange scars they’d left on her before she’d taken throne, and certainly not now that he saw what those scars had become with a little push.

“Right. Sorry about that,” he said timidly.

She changed the topic very suddenly, not giving the scars or her shadows a second thought as she looked him dead in the eye. “I can’t help but notice, Wilson, Maxwell looks very much alive.”

Ah, there it was. The unfortunate topic of the hour. Maxwell was very much still alive, and Wilson was very much not going to kill him. He cleared his throat, trying to remain cool and collected as he came up with some kind of answer for Winnie. He couldn’t think of it as ‘backstabbing.’ He needed to frame it more like ‘creative problem solving.’ Yes! That was it.

Winnie wanted Maxwell Dead, Maxwell wanted to go home, and Wilson wanted to get Winnie off that accursed throne and leave this horrible place forever without looking back! And somewhere, in the explanation for why Maxwell was not yet dead and why Wilson was, in fact, helping him build some monstrous portal to goodness even knows where, was a reasonable medium that the three of their goals could meet.

Possibly.

“Well - no, no, you’re right! See, I know we had a… deal, of sorts.” He wished he’d managed to word that differently. Too reminiscent of those silly old stories where foolish young humans made deals with people - with beings, that they shouldn’t. That’s all they were, of course. Just stories! But Wilson had a feeling that if they had any basis in reality, situations exactly like this one were where they sprang from. “But we talked it over, and I think we have a solution that everyone can agree upon!”

“Wilson you’re smarter than this! He’s - he’s evil, he’s Maxwell! He’s the reason we’re both here in the first place. He tricked both of us! You don’t really believe anything he’s told you, do you?” Winnie pleaded. She seemed desperate to get Wilson back on her side, and a desperate woman atop a throne of shadows was not something Wilson felt entirely safe with.

He swallowed thickly, glancing about as though the evergreens would offer him some answer that wouldn’t get him in trouble. It wasn’t that this hadn’t crossed his mind before - oh, no, Wilson knew Maxwell was nothing but a low life con man, but he was a low life con man with a plan, and possibly their only shot at escaping this hell of a forest.

“Winnie, please listen. Just… listen.” he tried, patting the air to get her to calm down. “I’m not just following his instructions blindly, this time. I’ve seen the plans, I’ve looked them over myself! Everything will work just the way he says it will, from the frame to the - the deerclops eyeball, and once the portal’s finished we can go home!” He gave her a nervous grin, waiting for the moment where she realized what he’d said, waiting for her to light up, delighted, like he’d seen her do countless times over things as trivial as flowers poking out of the dirt.

The words were slow to register with her, but they eventually did. Wilson could see the change in her expression as the suspicion melted away.

Wilson’s smile dropped.

She didn’t look impressed. In fact, she looked thoroughly sour.

Without saying another word, without asking him about his proposition and without sparing Maxwell another moment of her attention, she began to move towards Wilson. The shadows making up her right arm flickered and danced dangerously, like a black fire that itched at the corners of your vision.

He took a step back as she took a step forward, careful not to trip over his own feet or the splintered remains of trees that the deerclops had left behind as he moved away from her.

“Now - now just listen, Winnie! It really will work! Maxwell knows a-almost as much magic as you, he knows what he’s doing, and between me and him we can get it running!” He stammered his way through a half-baked explanation, knowing it was a bold-faced lie. Maxwell was infinitely more skilled in magic than Winnie was - just by virtue of this world alone, of all the arcane shadow magic that resided in that book of his, the very same knowledge that had been siphoned into Wilson’s mind when Maxwell had tricked him into building the door in his attic. But right now, book or no book, Winnie held the most power of the three of them, and he wasn’t about to insult her to her face.

He didn’t know what to expect, from Winnie. She was still Winnie, wasn’t she? But the shadows that climbed her arm, the look on her features, the dark garb and the air of decisiveness she carried now, made her seem very un-Winnie. He braced himself as she reached him.

Without a second thought, she moved right past him, not even bothering to glance back as she made for the deerclops corpse that had slumped down on the splintered tree trunk.

Wilson watched as she lifted her hand, watched as the shadows elongated into claws that reached forward as she sank her hand deep into the beast’s eye socket. She made short work of it, pulling out the one massive eyeball as if she were doing something as simple as plucking the fruit from a berry bush.

It made an awful squelching noise as she ripped it out, one that churned Wilson’s stomach and sent a prickling shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

She turned back towards him.

“You need this?” she asked, her voice flat and unkind. He did, but he wasn’t exactly keen on saying so, now. “Well, Higgsbury? Do you need the eyeball or not?” She gave it a violent little shake towards him, the thing clutched tight in the claw of shadows.

“W-well… yes.”

“Then take it.” She wasn’t offering. There was no mistaking her tone, it was as far from friendly as he’d ever heard it. She wasn’t offering it to him. She was challenging him. Her voice rose. “Go on! If you want to leave so bad, then take it!”

Wilson shot a glance back at Maxwell, who only shrugged nonchalantly, as though there weren’t at least a forty percent chance that if Wilson reached for the eyeball that Winnie might relieve him of his arm all together.

Slowly, carefully, he reached for the disgusting trophy. Two hands to lift it from her claw, and - oh, goodness, it was sticky. He fought his gag reflex and took it from her, making a split-second mistake.

He looked her in the eye. His breath caught in his throat as he looked at her, an unmistakable hurt mingled with unbridled disgust. Her thin lips curled up into a sneer as he lifted the weight of the eyeball out of her hands. “Fine. So be it,” she seethed.

“M-miss Winnie, I’m afraid I don’t understand--”

“If you want to play mad scientist with the man who tried to kill you, fine! I won’t stop you! But we had a deal. You help me get rid of him,” she jabbed a finger accusingly in Maxwell’s direction, “And I’d keep you safe. And you didn’t just break your end of the deal, Higgsbury, no, you stabbed it right in the back. So long as he’s alive, our deal’s off. Good luck with the hounds.”

There was a shift in the shadows, and she disappeared before his eyes.


	23. A Flower for Your Thoughts

Not much confused the scientist - at least not like this. But even he in all his stubborn pride had to admit - quite frequently, to Maxwell’s dismay - that he simply didn’t understand the most recent procession of events. 

“She was upset, clearly - was she not?” 

Maxwell made some noncommittal sound. He’d stopped listening to Wilson’s endless ramblings ages ago; the man refused to do anything but talk himself in circles with poor logic and wild assumptions that held less water than the rain barrel he’d built that had sprung a leak like South Fork. He was rather preoccupied, besides, in actually trying to build the portal rather than chattering away and dealing in hypotheticals. 

“She was, she must have been,” Wilson continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so cross before.” 

“You only knew her for a few months,” Maxwell pointed out, absently. 

“Funny how spending a few months stranded with someone in the woods moves things along a bit, isn’t it?” he snapped back. Winnie had been his only company for those months, and it wasn’t exactly a luxury to get to know one another when each had to rely on the other to help them not die. 

Maxwell didn’t make much of an effort to retort, giving an irritated grunt instead. 

“But if she was angry with me for something - helping you, perhaps? - why hasn’t she done anything about it? You know as well as I do that she could set any number of horrible things on us if she wanted. But she’s let us continue our work unhindered. It doesn’t make sense!” 

This was approximately the seventh time Wilson had run through this exact same one-sided argument, trying to parse out the intentions of a girl whose mind was riddled with shadows by this point. It was a fool’s errand. 

Speaking of errands. 

“Why don’t you make yourself useful, Higgsbury?” he asked shortly, briefly abandoning his work over the crockpot, brewing some of the more volatile components for his portal, to shove a backpack into Wilson’s arms. “If I’m right - and I usually am - the full moon will be soon, and I need you to fetch me a very hard-to-find ingredient, lest we have to wait another full month before we can continue with our project.” 

Wilson blinked, his train of thought derailed terribly. “What, uh… what do you need?” 

“Somewhere out in the forest, there’ll be a statue. Maybe you’ve encountered it. Strange little bumble-bee looking creature, poorly carved likeness, probably in a bed of charming little flowers. A very special flower will bloom under the full moon - oh, don’t worry, it’s not one of those foul dark flowers. It’s a Glommer’s flower.” 

It sounded vaguely familiar - Wilson thought perhaps he’d come across it on one of the other islands Maxwell had trapped him on while he was still on the throne, but he didn’t think he’d come across it here yet. 

“This island is huge! There’s no way I’ll be able to find a single stupid statue before the next full moon - it’ll be any day now!”

“Well then I suggest you look fast, or your friend is going to be on our tails for another month. You don’t think she’s going to be patient forever, do you?” 

Wilson frowned deeply. He still wanted to argue in her favor, just for the satisfaction of not proving Maxwell right, but there was a growing doubt where Winnie was concerned; he couldn’t reasonably say she wasn’t a threat now, not after what had happened with the deerclops corpse. She was mad at him - for what, he didn’t know; building the portal, presumably - and that anger combined with her newfound and proven uncontrollable power was a bad combination for the survivors. 

Reluctantly, the scientist gathered his things, slowly packing the the grass woven backpacks with enough food and water and supplies for fire to last him a few days of travel. If Maxwell needed this…  _ thing _ , to complete the portal, then so be it. He’d find it and drag it back if it meant roaming every corner of this accursed island. He’d be patient and methodical, and remind himself that this inane hunt for a statue would bring him one step closer to escaping this hell-hole of misfortune and bad choices. He’d help Maxwell complete the Portal, then get Winnie off the throne, and then all three would return to the real world - that was the plan, and it was remarkably reassuring. 

It was something to keep him going, at least, as he trudged through marsh and flatlands and the occasional, more pleasant meadows that spotted the immense island. He didn’t so much trudge through these areas as he did linger, reluctant to move on to the more barren areas. Often nights before this whole mess that had arisen from meeting Winnie, he’d found himself staged temporarily through the night in a patch of softer grass, sometimes among flowers. He wouldn’t have admitted it to her face, of course, but even the presence of something as simple and normal and kind as flowers was good for one’s mental health. 

As he thought of these things, he absently stooped down and plucked one from the earth. The stem gave way with a little snap, and he stood upright, continuing on as he stashed his axe to afford more attention to the little flower. He touched the petals, soft and white and velvety. It smelled sweet, and the pollen fell from it like dust at the slightest touch.

Winnie had been right, of course. 

One could never have too many flowers. 

How many garlands she’d made, much to the complaints and condescending chuckles of her companion, and now here he was gathering them up by the handfuls. The bees in the area didn’t seem to mind much, so long as he left them alone. Even if they were sitting on a flower he pulled from the ground, they simply bumbled off to another place when they realized their perch had been taken from them. It was relaxing almost, and Wilson thought that he might try his hand at making one of those garlands she’d been so fond of. He’d admit he wasn’t the best at weaving - he could make very rudimentary equipment, like the backpacks woven from wide, flat grasses, but beyond that it wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. 

She’d been content, on more than one occasion, to simply shove the flowers into the pockets of her apron, so he figured the next best thing to weaving a garland would be to follow suit. He filled his waistcoat pockets with flowers of all sorts: white flowers with the soft petals, the orange ones with the scratchy leaves; roses, though those were rather difficult to pick and often left him with a few more pricks in his fingers than he would have liked. Damn thorns. 

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with them. Maybe Maxwell had some use for them? Winnie had used them in her magic, after all, maybe Maxwell could use it in his. 

It wasn’t for another several minutes that Wilson realized what he’d just considered. 

Magic. 

Listen to him! Going on like some kind of--

Oh!

Well that was peculiar. 

Wilson had stooped down to pluck one last flower from the ground, having decided to abandon the pursuit before he delved any deeper into the nonsense that Winnie and Maxwell toted. He was a scientist, and he wouldn’t be subjected to such inane ramblings, however private. He had a task to focus on, after all.

Though his resolution about the task at hand wasn’t quite as sturdy as his refusal to pick any more flowers. He stood slowly, turning the thing over in his hand, fingers gently spinning the stem so he could observe it at all angles. 

There were two things that Wilson was certain of immediately upon observing the flower. 

Firstly, this was not the flower that Maxwell had told him about. The flower that Maxwell had told him about would be stout and red, speckled with white like a toadstool, and smell foul; this one was a pure white. 

Secondly, Wilson was sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that, for some reason, this flower was made entirely of marble. It was a peculiarity more than anything. Though Wilson thoroughly considered himself well prepared for anything this island could throw at him, a man impossible to surprise anymore, he had to admit that he was surprised to find this. It was unlike any flower he’d ever seen on the islands before - and that was quite saying something considering he’d picked a fair share of them himself, for his research, not to mention the excess that Winnie had introduced into his life. 

But this one… it was brand-new. 

And if there was one thing he’d learned since being forcibly evicted from his home, it was that brand new things, here, were a terrible, dangerous thing. 

 

“Congratulations, Higgsbury, you’re six days late. You missed the full moon! How disappointing.” 

Wilson sure was glad to be back. 

He already had a headache from the fight with the swamp tentacle he’d had getting back here. It had whapped him across the back of the skull, and his vision was only just starting to even out. Quite frankly, he was glad about that. One Maxwell was bad enough, he couldn’t imagine having to see two! 

“I had to hide in a pack of beefalo for two days because of hounds. Twenty-three of them, actually.”

“Well that explains the smell. Did you at least get what we need?” 

Wilson grunted, tossing down the flower. Slowly, a warbling, sing-song buzzing was heard, and Wilson heaved a great sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose as it grew louder. The thing had followed him back to camp, relentlessly tailing him no matter how many times he’d shooed it away, no matter how many pinecones he threw at it - nothing worked. It dawdled up to the pair, its tiny wings barely keeping it in the air as it buzzed and chirped. 

He had no idea what it was, of course, but he what he did know was that it was annoying. Horrifically so, in fact. 

“It followed me back,” he explained flatly, letting out a great, disappointed exhale. 

Maxwell couldn’t look any more pleased if he’d tried. “Oh, don’t give yourself so much credit, Higgsbury. It followed the flower. Wherever this goes,” he said lightly, scooping the bloom from the ground and holding it up to examine it in the light, “so does the Glommer. Like that… fuzzy abomination you used to tote around. Chester, I think you named it?” 

“You leave Chester out of this!” he snapped. “You’ve got the flower, now what?”

Maxwell hooked a finger at his chin as he stared up at the creature in thought. He stood there like that for what seemed like a long time before a look of epiphany came across his face, and he started to rummage through the backpack Wilson had carelessly dropped. 

There was a half-used torch; not in the best condition, but it would work in a pinch. Maxwell lit it and quickly took a step forward to close the gap between himself and the peculiar little thing hovering in the air between him and Wilson. Without another word, Maxwell lifted the torch, letting the crackling fire catch on the creature’s fur and within seconds the flame had consumed it. 

Wilson gasped, taking a half step back as it went up in flames with an almost comical ‘woosh!’ He blinked, almost unable to process what he’d just seen, and certainly unable to gather his wits fast enough to do anything about it. 

The thing made a heavy thump as it fell to the grass, its face smooshed into the dirt and its tiny, delicate wings still buzzing wildly as it burned, not understanding what had happened. The flames crackled fiercely with the force of a campfire in full swing before, slowly, they died, leaving behind a charred and remarkably dead bumblebee creature behind.

There was a moment or two of silence, Wilson staring down at the corpse before looking back up at Maxwell. “What was that for!?” he threw an arm out and exclaimed, his voice cracking somewhere in the middle for the surprising octave he managed to achieve in his shock. 

“Collateral damage. Had to be done. The flower can’t be destroyed otherwise, and that’s the part we need for the portal.” 

Wilson stepped carefully over the smoldering corpse, grimacing down at it as he joined Maxwell on the other side. 

Maxwell was already grinding the petals in the roughly made gold bowl that he’d hammered into shape for Winnie when she’d been poisoned by the mushrooms. It had been in the backpack when she’d given him, and it was something he’d intended to leave in the backpack until Maxwell had found it and started using it for his insane plan. Wilson felt strongly about leaving it be, but he wasn’t exactly keen on arguing with someone he was fairly sure was the incarnation of Satan himself. 

“There’s, uh… one more thing I thought you might be interested in.” Wilson said, reaching into his waistcoat pocket and pulling forth the flower he’d found earlier. It was still solid, the stem cracked clean across from where he’d plucked it up. 

Maxwell barely glanced at it, unconcerned until it registered exactly what it was he was looking at. Certainly that was a marble flower, wasn’t it? And as surprising as the scientist’s survival out here was to the former King, he was still fairly certain Wilson lacked both the patience and finesse to carve such a fine, lifelike flower from a hunk of marble. 

He set down the sad little golden bowl and took the flower from Wilson, examining it. “I didn’t make this.” He sounded confused. 

That was what Wilson feared. “You think she did? What would she be turning flowers into marble for?” 

There was a long pause, and Maxwell slowly turned to look up at the portal. He let out a frustrated little sigh, a long breath that carried with it tones on unrest as he looked back to Wilson. 

“Say, pal,” he said grimly. “You didn’t happen to notice what else she’d turned to stone, did you?”


	24. It's a Hard Rock Life

As much as he hated to admit it, Maxwell had been right. It was one of the very few times Wilson had ever seen Maxwell leave the camp, and even then he’d left some terrifying manifestation behind to watch over things while the pair were away. He’d led the former king to the approximate spot where he’d found the first marble flower, unsure if there had been any more. It had been a rather surprising find and, as it turned out, a remarkably distracting one, as he hadn’t been entirely sure if there had been any more marble transformations or not. 

As it happened, there had been. 

Now, Wilson watched with a quiet dismay as the marble crept up the bark of the pine tree like a quick moving rot. The wood crackled and splintered like it was trying to escape the blight, but it was useless - her marble was slowly encroaching on every living thing on the island. He’d watched it consume berry bushes and pig homes and rabbits and beefalo all the same, and he quickly regretted listening to Maxwell, which he was realizing was a recurring theme in his life. He knew they should have spent more time preparing for the seasons, stocking up on food and supplies that were fleeting. He knew they should have put their own survival over the completion of the portal, but Maxwell would hear none of it. 

And now, they were both going to starve to death before they could hope to complete the portal. 

The marble crackled across the earth, turning the acrid, dusty ground to solid stone as a high-speed marble tumbleweed nearly plowed him down. He leaped out of the way just in time as it crashed across the marble landscape, and he hit the stone hard, the heels of his palms taking the brunt of the impact. He hissed through his teeth, the contents of his backpack spilling across the flat land, and with a sinking horror he watched his last handful of roasted berries turn to stone in front of him.

He lifted himself, dusting off his already tattered clothes, and looked up at the overcast sky, as though the dreary clouds were the cause of all this. 

“Is this your idea of fun, Miss Winnie?” he called to the heavens, operating on some wild idea half-mad with frustration that she could somehow hear him. He felt a stitch in his chest as he scooped up the newly formed marble pebbles that had once been berries, chucking them at the sky and doing his best to ignore the pathetic pitter patter they made when they fell back to the earth. “Are you having a good laugh up there? Down there? Wherever you are, sitting on that throne, don’t even have the decency to come up here and look us in the eye while you turn this world to rock, you slimy, caitiff heathen!” he spat, feeling a fraction of his frustration siphoned from his chest as he snarled at the clouds. 

His chest heaved as he tried to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him from the fall. He dusted himself off again, feeling more scraggly and poorly-put-together than usual. He hated that feeling, and it was slowly but surely chipping away at his sanity as Maxwell sent him on one last errand.

“Fine. Look me in the eye then,” he heard. Wilson went so still, one might have thought the rocky blight had taken him over as well. “What’s the matter? I’m a heathen, not a gorgon.” There was a tone of grim amusement to her voice as Wilson turned back to the woman he’d just very loudly and enthusiastically insulted.

“You’re a traitor is what you are!” he snapped. “We tried our damndest to survive out here and now you’re trying to kill me! Why bring me back if that’s all you were going to do?” he asked, throwing an arm out, exasperated beyond reason. He knew, somewhere deep down, that he was arguing with a manifestation of those shadow creatures, that this wasn’t really her - no way it could be, since she was bound to the throne - but in that moment it was as much her as his magnificent, frazzled mind could handle. 

“You broke our deal, Higgsbury. I told you, last winter - I’m through helping you so long as you’re tagging along as Maxwell’s lackey!” 

“Last winter! That was bloody last week! And I’m--!” he stopped himself, and took a breath to calm himself “I’m not his lackey,” Wilson said measuredly. “If you’d just listen to me--” 

“No! Gods, no matter what happens to me, you still expect me to listen! I’m done! I’m not going to let Maxwell’s shiny new puppet try to talk me blind!” 

“Maxwell and I have been working on the portal,” he said, continuing on as if he hadn’t even heard her, “and it’s nearly complete. As soon as it is, Winnie, we can leave! We can finally, really leave! Why are you so upset about that?” 

Her wide, blank white eyes grew wide, and for a split second Wilson thought that maybe he’d finally gotten through to her. She finally understood why he’d been working alongside Maxwell all this time, why he’d been working so hard to follow the previous puppetmaster’s convoluted plans to the letter. 

His hopes were dashed as her expression grew sour, lips curling in a sneer to reveal those unsettling pointed teeth as she reached out. The shadow of her right arm flickered and flared as she reached across the way, the form of her arm augmenting before his very eyes in such a way that made his head hurt as her claws clamped around his torso, lifting him clean off the ground. 

He struggled in her surprisingly strong grip, held some ten feet off the ground by her shadows, scrabbling uselessly at the chilling limb for some sort of leverage. 

“Do you seriously think I like it here?” 

“I’m beginning to, yes!” He clawed at the side of her hand, trying to get her to loosen her grip around his middle; it was terribly uncomfortable, and he couldn’t say being picked up by the manifestation of shadows and evil was exactly his favorite pastime in this world. 

“You’re the traitor!” she screeched, “You and Maxwell are going to hightail it out of here and leave me to rot on this throne, and you want me to be happy for you?” 

“What?” he squeaked, her words barely having a moment to register before she threw him down with enough force that he was sure he must have cracked the marble he’d landed on. 

He coughed and sputtered as he tried to right himself, to drag himself back to his feet as Her hand returned to normal, flickering quietly as though nothing had happened. He certainly didn’t remember Maxwell having that power… He clutched at his ribs as he stood once more, looking up at her. “Winnie, if you’d just let me explain--” 

“No.” she said coolly, having regained her composure, though the sourness remained. “You don’t have anything to say to me, Wilson Higgsbury.” 

“But I do--!” he tried, watching as the shadows came up to consume her, dragging her projection back into the ground. 

This was quite possibly one of the most unfortunate cases of gross miscommunications he’d ever had the displeasure of being a part of. 

And with that, she was gone. 

* * *

“Maxwell, I think we may have… a little bit of an issue.” he said, returning to the camp just as the sun was setting. 

“The only issue I can possibly conceive is that I still don’t have those volt goat horns I sent you out for.” He held a hand out.

Wilson hummed irritably, digging through the backpack and producing the two horns he’d had to wrestle from an electrified goat. It had been an odd afternoon. Maxwell took them without any thanks - not that Wilson was expecting any - and positioned them carefully so that they kept the power source connected to the lightning rod. “The portal’s the least of our worries right now. Winnie’s not too pleased with us--” 

“Oh, this again…”

“--because she thinks we’re planning to leave her here.” There was a pause, and his companion seemed almost surprised at the news. So it had finally come to a head between the two survivors, had it? “We are going to be able to get her off the throne, aren’t we?”

Maxwell sighed, and gave his machine one last look before turning his attention to Wilson. “Listen, pal,” he started, leaning against the finished, sturdy frame of the portal, “I promise, Winifred won’t be on that throne much longer. We just gotta get there first, and the rest will be cake.” 

“I hope you’re right.” 

“I always am. Now, I’ll be needing the gems as well.” 

Wilson had almost forgotten about those. He reached and peered briefly into his backpack before upending the entire thing, letting some dozen odd glittering gems fall from the sack to patter softly against the only patch of grass that remained on the island. 

“What did you bring all of these for? I only needed… two, of each.” 

“I… thought Winnie might like them. Once we get her off the throne. Something to do her magic with.” 

Maxwell stooped and picked up the gems he needed for the next construct, scoffing. “If you could call her miserable little herbalism magic. Compared to what she has now, her magic was nothing but a sideshow act.” 

Wilson frowned deeply, watching his unlikely partner rummage through the chest of supplies. He didn’t much appreciate him talking about Winnie’s magic like that - even if it were true. No matter what either of them called it, it wasn’t real magic. There was no such thing! There was only coincidence, and science. 

But still, Wilson stooped down and picked up two of the stones himself, one in each hand - a red and a blue, and with some determination and his meager understanding of the scientific fundamentals of this world, he was itching to run an experiment that was long, long overdue. 

He worked clean through the night on one end of their pathetic little campsite as Maxwell worked across the way, both staying out of the other’s way and neither bothering to ask questions. Maxwell was more than content to leave Wilson to his inane tinkering, if it helped keep him quiet. There was nothing he hated more than having Wilson prattling away while he was trying to build the only chance of connecting to the outside world from in this terrible reality. 

The telelocator staff, once upon a time, was meant to protect the portal from the inevitable deerclops. As it turned out, Winifred’s incompetence and Wilson’s misfortune had been enough to protect the portal from the beast, and now the telelocator staff would serve a different purpose: of all people on this accursed island, Maxwell knew how hard it was to reach the throne room from the forest - nearly impossible, on most accounts, and he was hardly keen on trekking through the forest over and over searching for the parts for that ridiculous machine. 

As he fixed the gem into place, he figured a much more direct method was in order. 

Of course, such intentions with such an item would be utterly useless in anyone’s hands but his. But he knew every inch of that throne room - it was where he’d spent the last several centuries of his life, if you could call an existence on the throne something as kind as ‘life.’ At this point he knew it better than he knew any place on the island. 

Once the telelocator staff was finished, Maxwell would give his portal one last check, and they could depart as soon as Higgsbury was finished tinkering with whatever useless invention he was working on this time. 

It was an odd shape, and the form didn’t make much sense in the dark, but Maxwell wasn’t going to concern himself with the useless contraptions he produced - he’d gotten out of that habit a long time ago, for his health. 

* * *

Wilson looked at it proudly, configuring the last parts and desperately hoping that Maxwell hadn’t needed that last little bit of shadow fuel. 

It was a strange contraption, even by his standards, with the purple gem positioned squarely in the middle of the triangular frame. It was balanced carefully on the ground right now, resting dormant, and looked more like an eccentric lawn decoration than the ingenious machine it was truly meant to be, but he was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that it would serve its purpose when and if the time came. 

He didn’t care what it came to - he and Maxwell were bringing Winnie with them no matter what. Leaving her here wasn’t an option - not that it ever had been, in his books - but especially not now, after her little tantrum. 

He’d been angry with her, for subjecting them to this marbled hellscape, but he remembered the mood he’d been in the first couple of weeks after being deserted here after the fruitless promise of secret knowledge and greatness.

Winnie was frightened and angry and felt she’d been abandoned, all on top of the influence of whatever horrible energy had a hold of her higher judgement. 

All in all, so long as they didn’t die out here, Wilson figured he could forgive her once she was off the throne and back to her normal self. And this machine, after so long of struggling to design the next phase of his research labs, was going to ensure that.  

The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon. He’d lost count of how many days he’d been here, but he never once didn’t appreciate the sunrise, the safety of the daylight hours. And still, he was glad it greeted him once more before they made their trek underground, where the sunlight couldn’t reach, leaving the domain to the danger of the darkness. 

As the sun shone through the hazy canopy of clouds and fog, Maxwell called for his attention. “Are you going to keep playing with your toys, Higgsbury, or can we actually get a move on?"


	25. Checkmate

“Have you ever actually used one of those things before?” Wilson asked, cautiously joining Maxwell some ways away from the camp site. He didn’t like the way the gem was glowing - plainly put it shouldn’t have been able to glow like that without some external light source influencing it, but there was nothing. It gave off its own eerie, impossible light, and didn’t sit well with Wilson in a number of ways. **  
**

“No,” Maxwell said curtly, “But I created them. If you think I don’t know how to use my own creations, then we don’t have to retrieve Winifred…”

Wilson pressed his lips together in a tight line. He knew it was the same kind of blatant manipulation that Maxwell thrived on, but he knew it was a fair point. Maxwell was the only one who knew how to traverse this island without running the gauntlet over and over, hoping to survive her onslaughts long enough to reach the throne room, where her control diminished. It was evident that she didn’t trust Maxwell - and now, she barely trusted Wilson - and the scientist had the feeling that if she were to catch wind that they were trying to reach her in the throne room through any traditional means, she would pull out all the stops to stop them.

He glanced over his shoulder, giving his experiment one last hopeful look before he scooped up the backpack that held their supplies, slinging it over one arm as he shrugged it on. He knew what the underground was like now; he knew how to prepare. Provisions and light were his two main concerns when stocking for the trip, but he couldn’t help but worry about the little inconvenience of being violently murdered last time he’d been in the throne room.

He didn’t know how to make the amulets that Winnie had - he wouldn’t know where to start, honestly, despite the abundance of red gems and gold that he’d gathered to suit Maxwell’s needs while building the portal. He knew that the gems and the gold were two key components to the amulets, but how to make a shiny chunk of chromium and corundum unlock the secrets to reanimation of the dead was far beyond him. It sounded daft, and was hard to think about for too long without beginning to question his own sanity. He’d seen it work before - sort of. He’d actually been dead when it worked, but that was enough of a testament for him to at least have a reason to believe that it, whatever it may be, worked well enough to perhaps protect them from the inevitable killer that lurked in the shadows of the throne room.

Without Winnie’s knowledge of how to craft such an object - and for some reason, he had a sneaking suspicion that she wasn’t too keen on teaching him much of anything right now - he followed Maxwell away from the camp with a sense of dread lingering just behind him with every step.

He was going to go down there, and they were going to find a way to free Winnie, and he was going to die again.

It sent a shiver up his spine, just the thought of it. He had no way of knowing whether or not it would be permanent this time, but he preferred to focus on the more pleasant outcome of the three of them escaping this hellish world, and maybe finally being able to get back to his work, his home, his pursuit of the sciences… instead of rotting away in the underground for the rest of eternity.

That was considerably less pleasant to think about.

He cleared his throat, trying to shake himself from the distraction of his unpleasant thoughts, realizing he was just a moment or two away from running into Maxwell’s shoulder. The other man had come to a full stop without much warning to the inattentive scientist, and Wilson had to pull up short just to avoid slamming headlong into his back.

“S-uh… something the matter?” he asked, craning his neck to look up at Maxwell.

“There’s something you ought to know,” Maxwell said shortly, turning back to Wilson. He stood tall over the scientist, his shoulder pushed back and gaze cold and for a split second, he looked like the demon that had leered over Wilson every time he woke up in the springtime, after a particularly bad dream about starving to death, or freezing to death, or being mauled by hounds, or merms, or the darkness… with a chill, it vaguely registered that those hadn’t been dreams.

“About--” he paused, and cleared his throat, forcing his voice back to normal. “--about what?”

“Them,” was all Maxwell offered for a moment. He shifted, seeming to contemplate how best to explain it to Wilson, given his… limited understanding of the island. “They’re not going to be happy to see me back in the throne room. They exist in the most primal state of self-preservation, you see, so to see someone return who once sat on the throne… they won’t like that. They’re going to try to kill us, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“It’s in our best interest not to let that happen.”

“I think so.”

It felt odd to be agreed on something with Maxwell, even something as base and necessary as wanting to stay alive.

“Which is why you’ll be following my orders once we’re down there.”

Wilson frowned deeply, as if that weren’t what he’d been doing since the pair had miraculously made it topside. Maxwell had Wilson pinned more firmly under his thumb now than he ever had while on the throne, giving orders with the smug assurance that Wilson wasn’t going to question them or argue against them. Both men knew that Maxwell’s existing knowledge of Them was the only thing that would get the survivors off this island in one piece, and Maxwell fully intended to take advantage of that.

“Right. Because listening to you’s never been a problem for me before,” he joked sardonically, almost amused that Maxwell seemed to think it the most logical outcome. All things considered, Wilson wasn’t too keen to listen to anything Maxwell had to say - even the construction on the portal was a reluctant last-ditch partnership that left him feeling unpleasant in all sorts of ways. But it was, right now, his best option.

“What can I say, pal: you’re a terrible judge of character.”

 

* * *

 

If there was one thing that Wilson had learned during his time on the island, it was that lightning was not your friend. There was something deliberate about the lightning here, and every time the rain picked up Wilson found himself hoping against hope that it wouldn’t start to thunder. Once you heard that first roll of thunder on the horizon, it was inevitable - the lightning would find you, as ridiculous as that sounded, and it would almost always be the cause of several weeks’ worth of suffering.

Whether it was an electrical strike to one of his machines or a wildfire that burned down half of his camp, there was always some terrible luck that followed close behind and electrical storm, and Wilson had learned to grow wary of lighting, which was why he wasn’t too keen on following Maxwell into the middle of a clearing to act as his personal lightning rod.

Of course, it was a bit more complicated than that, but the gist of it was that the telelocator staff would somehow create a physical link between points A and B by way of lightning, much the same way that the wormholes linked two parts of the world together by… whatever it was inside the wormholes’ toothy mouths. Wilson preferred not to dwell on it too long. It made his skin crawl.

Maxwell seemed certain that the telelocator staff would work the way he intended, but something still sat uncomfortably with Wilson that he should seem so eager to effectively electrocute the nervous scientist.

Indeed, Wilson thought that the smug grin may have been a touch overkill. It was already painfully obvious that Maxwell was more than happy to smite him where he stood as though he were still on the throne.

“How do I know this isn’t just going to kill me? Winnie won’t bring me back this time, you know, she’s very cross with me!”

“Well then we’ll be one scientist short on the way home, ” he said offhandedly. “It’ll lighten the burden on everyone, including the portal, I assure you.”

Wilson swallowed thickly at the casually thrown insult. With the prospect of home so close, almost tangible, it was almost easy to forget that this was Maxwell he was dealing with. No matter if he was throned king of this place or not, he was still slimy and treacherous and cruel. “Right then. Let’s get it over with.”

“Do remember, Higgsbury. When you arrive, don’t go wandering off. You wait for me, unless you want to be violently dismembered by something with too many teeth and a penchant for giving the dead nightmares. Capiche?”

“Capiche,” he managed, his voice trying to die halfway up his throat. Maxwell had a particular talent of making even the most horrific things sound like just another fact of life, which perhaps unnerved him more than the horrific things themselves, which were fairly run-of-the-mill here on the island. All of Maxwell’s creations and creatures were monstrosities. But knowing they were monstrosities was perhaps easier than thinking them any type of normal.

Maxwell raised the staff, and Wilson watched the strange little purple gem glow in an unnatural sort of way, lighting up the evening before there was a rumble in the earth, and a stinging, burning sensation through his entire body, leaving a charred mark in the grass where Wilson once stood.

He gasped, his lungs filling with air, the sensation making him realize just how long it had been since he’d taken a breath. God, his chest ached. He sat up, cradling his head for a moment as he tried to piece together what had just happened. He remembered Maxwell, and the staff, and a crack of lightning, and then blankness… and then this.

He looked up, surveying the world around him. It was familiar, and most certainly the caverns that he and Winnie had explored, what felt like several lifetimes ago. And faintly, echoing off the walls of the impossible cave, he could just make out the jaunty tune of a gramophone.

It made his stomach flip to realize, hearing the song Winnie had been drawn by. It wasn’t anything particularly beautiful or captivating - in fact, it was a ragtime tune. Silently, Wilson stood, giving the cavern a wide gaze as he wandered forward, listening carefully as the music grew a fraction louder. He was certain that he’d turned off the music the last time he was in here, having moved the needle from the old disc that he was sure still spun on the gramophone.

As Wilson moved forward, another light flared to life, a strange sense of deja vu filling him as he could almost see Winnie standing beside him, focusing every ounce of her being on the pillar to light it. The ones down here lit of their own accord, he remembered that much, and carefully, he ventured out into the safe, warm ring of light.

He’d barely managed a few steps before something grabbed him, pulling him backwards into the deeper dark.

He stumbled, flailing as he tried to keep his feet beneath him, a shout trying to struggle its way from his throat before a hand clamped over his mouth, holding him fast.

“What part of ‘don’t go wandering off’ was too hard to understand, pal?”

Wilson made a muffled sound and struggled free, trying to catch his breath. “You scared the dickens out of me! Was that really necessary?”

“I scared you, did I?”

“Yes!”

“Then it was entirely necessary. Now come on, it sounds like someone’s expecting us.” He moved past Wilson, ignoring the scientist’s protests. He lifted the divining rod he’d plucked from the clearing they’d landed in, tuning the dials just so, making the pitch even out to a pleasant sound so much unlike the grating noise that Wilson and Winnie had listened to. It vaguely occurred to Wilson that Maxwell might not actually know where he was going. He’d spent God only knows how long down here, but he’d been strapped to that chair the whole time. It made a weird sort of sense, in a dismal way, that he wouldn’t know his way around the very cave he’d been trapped in.  

“You can hear it? The music?” Wilson ventured.

“Of course I can. I listened to it for three thousand years, don’t you think I’d be able to recognize the tune by now?”

Wilson grimaced, not having known just how long Maxwell had been down here before he and Winnie arrived. Regardless, he was a man of science, and once a question lodged itself in his head, it was all he could do to answer it. “Winnie heard it too, when we were here last, when you were - you know. But… I couldn’t hear it. Why is that?”

Maxwell gave Wilson a sideways glance, his attention largely dominated by the demanding machine in his hands, leading him in twisting, turning paths that barely made any sense - but he supposed little about this place was meant to. “The music doesn’t exist in this world. It exists in Their world. Very close to one another, but barely perceivable. Your friend Winifred is a witch, correct? I daresay we perceive the world a little bit closer to the veil of shadows and magic than you do, Higgsbury.”

Wilson listened to the growing sound of the ragtime music, and swallowed thickly.

“I suppose so.”

There was a long stretch of silence that settled between them as Maxwell led them further, deeper into the cavernous hellhole. With every step, the music grew louder, and so did the echo of Maxwell’s voice in his head. Most of what he’d said made perfect sense - he could hear the music because he was Maxwell, he’d been strapped to the chair for a small eternity and was still hardly human, a magician with a mean streak; Winnie had heard it because she was a witch, and however reluctant he was to believe in her magic, the music wasn’t the first time she knew things about this world he couldn’t even begin to comprehend. She’d heard whispers at the door, she’d seen the shadows at the obelisks, and she’d heard the music because she perceived the world differently than he did.

What, then, did that mean for his perception? Was he going daft?

“Say, Maxwell, suppose it wasn’t just--”

“Hush! I need to concentrate. We’re close, now.”

Despite the question, Wilson’s voice died in his throat. He suddenly realized that he dreaded the idea of coming upon Winnie, tethered to the throne as she was.

He felt a knot of anxiety in his chest as Maxwell led them further, into one clearing and out of another, before stopping them in a dense clump of trees that somehow grew down here, despite no visible sunlight.

“Okay, pal, here’s the deal,” he started, and Wilson already didn’t like where this was going. He wasn’t looking to make any deals with this man, not after the hell he’d put them through. “The throne is just on the other side of this clearing. I’ll get your friend off the throne, you just worry about distracting her long enough to let me get close. Got it?”

He gave a hesitant nod, and took a deep breath. He supposed it was bound to happen eventually. He headed out first, directed by Maxwell, to walk the path set out for him by those uncanny pillars that flared to life as he drew near. They were lined parallel, each one five feet from the next at the edges of the tattered rug that stretched before him like the most dismal red carpet in the world, covering the checkerboard floor. He walked them with some hesitance, disquieted to find that the music was loud in his ears now, and as the last set lit for him, he found himself at the  end of the carpeted runway.

He swallowed thickly, looking at the figure across the way. She remained slumped forward, limbs strapped to the throne just as she’d been the last time he’d seen her. He was quiet for a long time, taking the quiet moment to organize his thoughts.

She was still in her apron, was the first thing he noticed. That ghastly black dress she’d worn was nowhere to be found, nor was her hat or the shadows that had consumed her arm.

She sat with her head hung down, her messy bangs obscuring her face. It was hard to tell if she were awake, or even alive - though after a breathless moment, he noticed the rise and fall of her shoulders, and was certain of at least so much.

He swallowed the knot of anxiety that was trying to push itself up his throat, and cleared it away with a little harumph. “W--uh… Winnie?”

She froze, her shoulders coming to a stop as she listened.

“Are - are you in there?”

Slowly, she looked up, tired, blank eyes trying to focus in the dim light. She blinked several times, almost disbelieving. She tried to blink him from her vision; when he didn’t disappear, she seemed to regain some clarity. “...Yeah,” she managed. “Never left. Not much place to go.”

There was a tremendous wave of relief that ran through him. She didn’t seem mad at him, and she didn’t seem to be the same person who had accosted him in the woods. A great grin split his features, despite the fact that she was still throned.

“I thought you were leaving… That’s what They told me…”

“Well, Miss Winnie, quite frankly They lied. I’m not going anywhere unless you’re coming with me.”

It was a jarring noise, one that Wilson hadn’t expected, and one that he shouldn’t have been so dismayed to hear, but Winnie actually laughed. “That’s sweet of you, Higgsbury.” She seemed tired; he supposed not having any indication of the passage of days could do that to a person. “But I can’t get off this throne. Whatever you did, I want you to get yourself topside and go finish that portal with Maxwell no matter what I say or do, understand? Just go home.”

It was bewildering for a moment; he almost didn’t know what to say, and in fact for several seconds he sputtered and struggled, trying to form his confused thoughts into words. “What - no - that’s - ludicrous! I’m not leaving you here, Winnie, you’re going to come with us!”

Winnie cringed, eyes wide as she her gaze darted back and forth, searching for whatever horror crawled in the corners of her vision. Wilson felt it too, briefly, a shudder down his back that prompted him to look over his shoulder, finding nothing but the inky blackness. He looked back to her; she shook her head.

“The Throne has to be occupied. It’s Their rule, They won’t let it sit empty.”

“Their rules be damned! Maxwell said he knows how to get you free. He said it’ll be tricky, but he can get you off the throne!”

“What? No! Wilson, They whisper about him when They think I can’t hear. I brought him back by mistake and They warned me he’d come back to the throne room if I didn’t get rid of him while he was still mostly mortal. He’s lying to you hoping you’ll help him reach me!”

The stress in her voice unnerved him, setting a black weight in his stomach. “That’s - that’s just Them, trying to scare you. Trying to keep you on the throne, Winnie, please try to understand. You’re smarter than this, you know!”

“No! No you have to listen to me! For once, Higgsbury, just listen! I can talk to Them, I might even be able to convince Them to let you leave, but you can’t let him down here! Just go home!”

“And what about you? Don’t you want to go home too?”

“Wilson, I don’t have a home to go back to! They burned it, they burned everything! Why do you think I took Maxwell’s help in the first place? They tried to kill me! It doesn’t matter, I can’t go back!” Her voice tore at her throat as she struggled forward.

Wilson shrank before her rather feverish testament.

“I - I just - Winnie, I’m sorry,” he managed, open palms facing the ceiling in some show of helplessness that simply didn’t sit right with her.

She blinked, taking a moment to comprehend as a look of abject fear blossomed, something more concrete and involved than even the lurking threat of the shadows had evoked in her. “Wilson, you didn’t--”

There was a click.

With terrifying certainty, the bindings around Winnie’s wrists and ankles fell away, slinking back into the form of the throne as she fell forward.

It all happened very slowly, to Wilson. There was a split second that he realized she was free, and Maxwell had done it. There was a split second of relief, and a split second of delight that they could finally, finally go home. Head through the portal, all three of them, and finally escape this abysmal world. The throne sunk into the cold stone of the ground, and disappeared.  

But in the next moment, it was like a shot had torn through him. The upbeat, cheerful music still played, though dimly, as Winnie collapsed. Her legs buckled and her head started to fall to the side as her knees hit the floor with a hard thud, jolting her body for a moment before she crashed down the rest of the way. He tried to move to catch her, but it was all too fast in his head - he barely had a moment to react before she was on the ground, lifeless.

He was suddenly very aware of his own breathing as he tried to comprehend what had just happen. She’d been freed, and died, all within the same minute. There was a strike of lightning nearby from a sky that didn’t exist, a burning heat tearing across his skin as he tried to drag Winnie away from the strike. The earth trembled, and from the charred ground rose a new throne, far larger than the one Winnie had sat upon. Its back consisted of spires that jutted from the frame, sharp points that curled up towards the imaginary sky and a wide, solid base flanked on either side by great carved arms. It still shimmered and slithered with shadow, but in a way far more terrible and more purposeful than before. This throne hadn’t just been pulled into creation by Them, who couldn’t care one way or another what Their captive’s living space looked like - no, this one was crafted, by someone with a great love for grandeur.

There was another shimmer of shadow, and the seat, to Wilson’s dismay, was suddenly filled.

“Now, Higgsbury,” he said with a sharp, toothy grin like a smug crocodile, “I think I owe you my gratitude.”

Wilson looked up at the throned king with wide eyes, a wonderful air of fear about him - and rightly so, thought Maxwell, sitting himself on the throne like he belonged there. “You really should learn to listen to your friend, Higgsbury. She has an knack for good guesses.”

He pulled Winnie closer to him - or more accurately, away from Maxwell, only dismayed to find that she was slipping from his grip. It was a horrific thing to watch, as the lifeless body in your arms, belonging to someone whom you’d watched die mere moments ago, disintegrated into dust before your very eyes. He tried to keep a grip on her, but she didn’t seem to care, fading away like ash in a light breeze.

There was a haughty little humph from the throne. “Don’t act so broken up about it. I think you’ll find she’s doing a lot better topside. Besides,” Maxwell said, reaching a miraculously untethered hand out, one dark fist clutching at the air and snuffing out the pillars behind Wilson. The pathway leading to the throne was swallowed by darkness, and Wilson had nowhere to go. “You’re going to have a lot more to worry about than just her, pal.”

Wilson felt a familiar tearing in his chest, like a bullet ripping through him, and all at once the world ceased.


	26. The End

Wilson was growing far too impartial towards the sensation of dying.

He woke up, dazed, in the middle of a barren wasteland. The marble was gone, replaced with the dry, acrid silt of a desert. It coated his palms as he hauled himself to his feet, squinting up at the sky. Even through the overcast sky, he could tell it was nearing nighttime already. Maxwell sure had a funny way of showing his gratitude.

It took him too long to reach any trees, and even longer to find a suitable piece of flint to fashion into an axe. He built a fire by the skin of his teeth that night, knowing that whatever Maxwell had meant by ‘a lot more to worry about,’ it was going to mean tougher conditions than ever.

Wilson wasn’t exactly a stranger to harsh conditions. Quite the contrary, his time out here had taught him how to survive the elements, even if only barely. He’d survived this long - sort of. He’d died an awful lot, recently, but not because of his own mistakes.

And so he trudged on, looking for any kind of familiar landmark. If he could get back to the portal, at least, back to his and Maxwell’s camp, there might still be some hope for escaping. The island was large, he knew that much. Even while under Maxwell’s orders, he hadn’t explored the whole vastness of it. Presumably, Winnie was somewhere here on the Island as well, and he needed a way to find her before they departed once and for all.

That, on the other hand, would prove difficult.

The sun rose on the next day, and before the sun had even peaked in the sky, he was already sweating through his waistcoat. He removed it, slinging it over his shoulder, certain that not even the flat plains had ever gotten so hot before. Sure, the summers could grow warm and humid, especially in the dense forests and the swamps, but never did it feel like being cooked alive before.

His own breath felt suffocating, and as thirsty as he was, he wasn’t dumb enough to drink from the ponds that dotted the landscape. The trees offered shade, though, and he was grateful for that, marvelling at the fact that the leaves themselves didn’t burst into flames under the heat of the sun.

How dismal; it was becoming increasingly clear that he would be unable to venture too far until evening, when the sun began to set and the cooler weather settled in. It gave him precious little time to do all the things he needed to - not starving to death, among others, he thought as his stomach growled. Being violently resurrected really helped to work up an appetite.

The days were longer, and maddening as he was stuck wandering the dense forest, doing his best to stay in the kindly shade of the birchnut trees. He picked things up along the way: fallen birchnuts - which were technically edible when cooked - flowers, twigs, all bits and pieces that would help him as he went, things that might not have been a necessity at the time, but that offered him some semblance of productivity rather than just aimless wandering.

Darkness fell fast, and he thanked his lucky stars - hidden somewhere behind the ghastly cloud cover, most likely - that by nighttime, he had enough supplies to build a small fire. The threat of darkness was still omnipresent, no matter who he was running from or trying to find - darkness demanded his attention above all else.

The fire crackled and spat more than a few times - burning embers nearly caught the dry grass beneath him, but it was never hot enough, long enough to ignite. Instead, the embers fizzled out, turning from a glowing gold to an orange to red, disappearing in the dim light all together. He didn’t think much on it, hoping the sun would rise soon. A handful of berries and birchnut meat was enough to sate his hunger for the evening, but he’d have to search for more soon.

He scooped the nutmeat from the shell, having grown used to the dry, bitter taste. They were food, they didn’t spoil too quickly, and they weren’t a hassle to eat. In his books, that was pretty good for food out here.

The chunk of birchnut was lifted halfway to his mouth when he paused. Sure, it had been a rough day, with a lot of unexpected stress and also death, but Wilson was sure he’d managed to retain most of his wits through it all. There was no reason for him to be seeing things, and yet there it was.

A pair of eyes in the darkness, staring up at him. They were luminous, and seemed to glow at the edge of his circle of light. They watched him intently, never faltering or blinking, and only occasionally shifting from one side to the other, as if whatever it was was contemplating moving closer.

He rather hoped it decided not to.

The sun could come up any time now, really, he wouldn’t mind.

Wilson put down the halved birchnut, the shell of which was really a large ordeal, a little smaller than a coconut, and stood from the ground a bit nervously, watching as the eyes followed his movement.

Uncertain hands reached for his axe. He’d done a lot of work the evening prior, and he wasn’t sure how much the old tool had left in it, but it gave him a sense of control over the situation regardless.

The fire crackled, shrinking a bit more as it ate away at the kindling, and Wilson watched as the eyes scooted closer, never losing its place at the edge of the ring of light.

“What are you, then?” he asked, his own voice sounding a bit uncertain. Was this the thing that lurked in the darkness? The beast that could fell a pigman in two hits? It was remarkably small, if that were the case, the eyes low, close to the ground. He’d expected something massive and gruesome.

As if in answer, the eyes blinked once, then twice, as the pair were joined by several more, smaller pairs of eyes that surrounded them. All together, Wilson thought grimly, there were eight.

As the fire grew smaller and smaller, it grew quieter, and Wilson couldn’t help but notice that the crackling and clicking remained, now accompanied by a low, steady hissing sound. It seemed the eyes hadn’t expected him to notice them, bright as they were out there in the darkness, and they weren’t pleased.

Click-click-click went the little beast, scuttling into the light of the campfire, examining Wilson closely. Its mouth gaped, revealing the fangs, shiny with venom. It was a furry little creature, and utterly repulsive. He swung his axe at it, hoping to shoo it away, back to the den it had come from. Wilson had built his fire in such a hurry that evening, he must have chosen an unfortunate spot, too close to a spider nest.  

“Go! Go on!” he hissed back, as the little spider drew itself closer to the ground, forelegs up over its head as it cowered for a moment. Wilson pressed, very eager to be rid of the thing, and struck out with a foot, toppling the spider and watching with a mild sense of guilt as it struggled to right itself.

His fire was barely alive, now, just a few smoldering embers in the middle of the pit. Everything was dark as the little spider gave a great hiss, almost loud enough to be considered a squeak. All at once, as it managed to roll off its back and scuttle back into the darkness, there was another, much more terrible sound.

The sun began to peek over the horizon, giving Wilson a glimpse at the monstrosity that was emerging but fifteen feet away, in a clump of trees he’d failed to explore before settling down for the night. Quietly, he gathered his belongings, gripping his axe as he watched the bulbous form of a spider’s nest quiver and shake. Long, sharp, silver-tipped legs emerged from the silken nest, lifting it upwards to tear it away from the earth as a massive spider emerged, giving an ear-splitting hiss.

Wilson didn’t even bother to see that his fire was extinguished properly, as he usually would. He turned and ran.

The earth shook with every step the spider queen took, scuttling towards Wilson with great strides and terrifying speed. It was as much as he deserved, he supposed, kicking the spider like he did. He just thought, perhaps, this was a bit much as far as karma went. He hadn’t killed the little beast, though he was sure it would have made a meal out of him in a heartbeat if it had been a little bigger.

Despite her size, the spider queen was agile. She scaled trees and rocks, clambering across the landscape with ease. Even through the dense woodlands, she pursued him. He needed to lose her - fighting her wasn’t an option, and she seemed intent on picking a fight. If he could just get out of her line of sight, hide somewhere until she lost interest and returned to her nest. And it would have to be soon. The sun was still struggling over the horizon, but the moment it was in the sky, the heat would be unbearable. He couldn’t run from her in heat like that, he would collapse.

She tore through branches, and foliage, and all manners of wildlife, sending one frog flying a good thirty meters with a single kick of one leg - she plowed through it all, but she was slowing down, having trouble keeping up with him. It was good fortune, too, he was starting to feel a bit winded. Wilson glanced over his shoulder, spying the spider queen having a tussle with a small pack of frogs–

There was a crack, and Wilson pitched down to the floor, hitting the earth hard and swallowing a small mouthful of dirt on his way. He left a neat skidmark in the ground, and bit back a cry as he brought one leg up, clutching at it. Goddamn, that hurt like hell. What had he tripped over? It didn’t matter. He heard the deathribbits of the frogs down by the pond, and knew it was only a matter of time before the spider queen continued her chase.

Gritting his teeth and taking deep, slow breaths, he pulled himself forward, trying to keep the weight off of his broken ankle, hunkering down, hunched over in a misshapen rocky den. It looked as though something might have lived in there once upon a time, but now all it was good for was hiding from murderous spider queens.

A pretty good use, in Wilson’s opinion.

He clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to stifle the sound of his breathing as he swallowed the flaring pain in his ankle.

He heard the clicking of the queen, the rumbling in the earth as she neared, the angered hissing that echoed back through his little hiding spot. How long would he have to stay here before she gave up, before the sun went down and allowed him to safely leave the shade? The den stunk terribly like the old living quarters of some animal, but it kept him safe for the time being, and that was all that mattered. He cradled his injury carefully, knowing that even once she left and the heat dissipated into evening, he wouldn’t be able to move very well. Perhaps he could fashion a crude crutch from twigs and moss.

Perhaps he’d just stay here.

He was bound to come back anyway, and then his ankle would be healed.

Wilson rested his forehead against the cool rock, and closed his eyes for a moment.

Such thoughts should have concerned him more than they currently did, he thought.

* * *

Winnie woke up with a headache.

The world seemed stiff and unreal for a long time, things too bright; she feared her sanity was slipping. Things were all sort of a blur since she’d been throned, but she remembered very clearly having Wilson in front of her, and now she was free. She hoped against hope that he wasn’t down there. She didn’t want him down there, she wanted him off this blasted island and back home.

She wandered, heading south, gathering carrots and seeds and berries in her apron and weaving flowers together as she plucked them from the grass. It was already evening when she’d woken up, and she feared it would be nighttime soon. She knew something lurked out in the darkness, something this world couldn’t prevent with any kind of magic. The only thing that would keep it at bay was light, and Winnie didn’t have the materials necessary for a fire. She fashioned a quick little torch from twigs and grass - just something that would give her light during the short nights here on the island - and continued her wandering.

The island was familiar, in her mind. Despite knowing she’d never seen this path, she knew it well, and knew that it would eventually lead into a swamp. On the other side of the swamp there would be a rockland. It all came naturally to her, and she was glad for the strange intuition; it helped her steer clear of more dangerous areas. She had precious little to her name. Even her book was gone, now, leaving her with next to nothing to work with.

But despite her uncanny internal compass, that still didn’t help her find anything useful. Wilson, for one. She so desperately wanted to know if he was here, on the island with her. If he was, if she could just find him, that was half the battle right there. No matter what this island had to throw at them, they could parse out a plan against it so long as he wasn’t tethered to the throne. She hoped he was smarter than that; she knew he was smarter than that.

Without so much as a word, Winnie drew her pendulum from her blouse, looking at it carefully. She was silent for a long time, luminous eyes focused on the little crystal point at the end of the chain. If anyone were to stumble upon her, they might have thought she was trying to stare a hole through the crystal. “Help me remember. Did Wilson take the throne?” she whispered. The pendulum was still for a moment. She repeated her question.

There was no breeze, no tremors, not even the slight shake of her hand; the pendulum remained still.

“Come on, blast it, I need to know! Did Wilson take the throne!? Where is he?”

The pendulum began to swing slowly, back and forth. Winnie took a mental step back; in all her years of reading the pendulum, since she was a teenager, she’d never seen anything quite like this. It looked like it had found a new center of gravity, tilted forward ever so slightly as it struggled against its chain.

Winnie blinked, dumbstruck for a moment or two more before she gasped, the sound chasing several crows from the nearby trees as she gave a great jump, and raced off in the direction her pendulum was leaning. She didn’t care about the darkness or the torch, though she tried her best not to let it get whipped by the wind. She wouldn’t be any use to anyone if she were laid dead by the darkness after her first day out here. But even as the night wore on, she followed her pendulum, watching it carefully for every minute movement of the crystal, following its directions exactly. The divining rod that Maxwell had crafted was only one method of divination. His method was loud and obtuse, cobbled together to blend magic and machine, much like his clockwork monsters. But Winnie knew that magic could come in many different forms, in all grades of subtlety.

And hers had just smacked her square across the face.

She rushed, hurrying through meadows and around beehives as she followed the pendulum, abandoning her torch as it burned out, just as the sun rose over the horizon again. Despite her torch laying uselessly somewhere in the middle of the woods some half mile back by the time the sun had struggled free of the treetops, there was still smoke billowing into the dimly lit sky. Her heart leaped hopefully in her chest and she tucked her pendulum away, making a beeline for the plume of smoke.

She crashed through the dense woods, ducking beneath the branches that she could and weaving between the trees as she came upon a small fire. She stood in the middle of the woods, chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath, gaze scanning the great expanse of woodlands for any sign of life.

Her breath came in little huffs, distracted as she searched. The forest was still.

There was the sizzle at her feet, the sound of a fire dying, catching her attention long enough to pull her from her trance. The ash was still warm, and Winnie knelt down to scoop it into her apron pockets. All of her supplies - her flowers, her charcoal, her mushrooms, all gone, rotting away in the throne room most likely.

There was a scuffle from within a pile of rocks that nearly knocked her clean off her feet, her heart jumping out of her chest as she let out a yelp, grabbing the nearest charred stick to fend off whatever animal was emerging from its home.

There was a hand, then a shock of black hair that stuck up in every direction, followed by a pair of tired eyes and a spear that jabbed at her blindly.

She scuttled away from the point, the sharp stone just barely missing her shoulder as she crumpled down to the grass. “It’s me! It’s me!” she chirped, her voice two octaves too high, trying to stress how important it was that he not impale her.

He blinked, squinting into the light of the morning. “Winnie? Miss Winnie!” he did his best to clamber out from beneath the little den. He reeked of something akin to wet hay and sweat, and seemed to have difficulty moving on his feet. She helped him up, shouldering his weight as he hobbled up to find his balance. “How in Science did you find me here?” He sounded disbelieving.

She gave a disbelieving laugh of her own, looking almost as bewildered and wild as he did. She shook her head, her free hand pressed against her forehead to push her bangs back. “Higgsbury, it’s got nothing to do with Science!” she laughed, trying not to disturb his balance.

He hadn’t expected for her vehement refusal of science to ever be so refreshing. Things had taken a nightmarish turn, but to hear her prattle on about magic felt familiar, something he could grasp onto for lack of anything else, in a much more figurative sense than the way he was literally clinging to her for support. He hissed through his teeth, wincing as another pain shot through his ankle. “Miss Winnie, if I might be so bold… I’m afraid I did a number on my ankle trying to escape a spider–”

“–a spider did this to you?”

“–it was a very big spider. Now, I seem to recall you knowing the recipe for a restorative miles better than anything I’d managed. Stars and atoms, that feels like a lifetime ago…”

Winnie was quiet for a moment, helping to ease him back to the ground to examine his ankle. It was swollen and discolored, and even as gentle as he could tell she was trying to be, it hurt like the dickens. He grimaced and bit back a cry as she examined him.

“Well… the good news is,” she said quietly, “I don’t think it’s broken. You just turned it.”

He hummed deeply, a displeased sound. “And the bad news?”

She pursed her lips, brow knit. “I… I don’t have my book. It’s somewhere in the throne room, I think. And without it… I don’t know if I can.”

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know if you can?’” he asked. “Blimey, Winnie, you cooked up a concoction that healed an open wound of mine within hours! Don’t you remember that?”

“Well yes, but that was because I had my book, all the magic I’ve ever known was in that book, and without it I’m hardly much of a witch, am I?”

He shook his head, pulling a face. “What kind of logic is that? Now come on, you’re better than that! When that thing bit you, you knew exactly what I needed to do, and you could barely see straight enough to read the damn b–ack! Blast. The book, you don’t need it,” he finished heavily. “But I very much need you, to help me get to the portal. If you can get me back on my feet, we can find it.”

She took a deep breath, looking up at him with some uncertainty, and nodded.

“Brilliant. Let’s get to work.”

Winnie gathered everything in her sights, from ashes to flowers to honey and honeycomb, tufts of fur from rabbits and dirt from the molehills as they burrowed beneath the earth. She was sure she’d be able to come up with something, some variation of the salve he’d given her when she’d wandered into his camp an eternity ago. She’d set him up against a fallen log, helping him keep the pressure off his ankle long enough for her to concoct something for him.

Chickweed, yarrow, rocks for grinding, ash and mud to bind.

It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. She returned to him by sundown, setting up a small fire between them and depositing her gatherings by the fireside as she ground the ingredients into an unpleasant goop that she spread against his ankle, wrapping it with the tall grasses that had grown astride the berry bushes she’d picked clean for their supper that night. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to get them to the morning.

The fire crackled and burned away at the kindling at an alarming rate, Winnie trying to ration their remaining kindling so that they wouldn’t run out before sun up. It felt almost pleasant to be back out here, with a fire in front of her and someone other than the Shadows to talk to. Wilson had taken to telling her in exhaustive detail about the misadventures he and Maxwell had while she was trapped on the throne, and Winnie found herself listening more to the sound of him than his actual words. She stared at him with a blank sort of look, pleasantly as the fire cast eerie, restless shadows against his sharp features.  

He stopped halfway through his sentence, and gave her a funny look. “What’re you staring at me like that for?”

She blinked, startled from her trance as he spoke directly to her. She sat up straight, looking caught off guard. “I… I don’t know. I guess I was just wondering. I don’t remember much about what happened on the throne, when you arrived. How did you get out?”

“Same way you did, I’m afraid. Maxwell took the throne back and kicked us both out into the wilderness. You don’t remember anything that happened when I was there?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not much, no. It’s all sort of a blur leading up to when They let me go.”

Wilson gave an uncomfortable shuffle that had nothing to do with the healing twinge in his ankle. “So… you don’t remember what you told me, before you, uhm… died?” he didn’t like the way the word tasted. He’d certainly prefer to avoid that topic as much as possible, but his curiosity got the better of him.

She shook her head again. “Not a clue, I’m afraid. I’m sorry. I hope it wasn’t anything too terribly important.”

“No, I wouldn’t say it was.” he said offhandedly, hoping she wouldn’t call his bluff. They’d discussed their mutual ostracization before - he’d told her about his estrangement from his family and his science, and she’d told him about her witchcraft - but she hadn’t mentioned that she’d lost her home, that others had tried to kill her; she’d come to the island for lack of better choice.

“Good,” she yawned, lowering herself to the ground in front of the fire and closing her eyes. “Tomorrow we’ll see if you can walk, and go find that portal…”

“I just hope it works. Maxwell seemed to know what he was doing, but if I had to fix it, I’m afraid I wouldn’t know where to begin!” he said, looking over to her.

Winnie was fast asleep.

He took a breath, letting her sleep off whatever ill effects the throne undoubtedly had on her. He suspected they would have to find some flowers for her at some point as they searched for the portal.

Winnie’s eyes snapped open and she sat up with a jolt. “Wilson? Wilson!” she called, scrambling to her feet.

“Take it easy! You’ll put someone’s eyes out with those elbows.” he said, easing her arms back to her side as he rounded her, moving back to the campfire. “Three guesses as to the big news for the day,” he said, grinning and holding his arms open in demonstration. He was back on his own two feet, good as new with the exception of a slight soreness in his ankle. “Book or no book, miss Winnie, your work is brilliant as ever! Now, I already did some packing for the journey, considering I’m not sure exactly where the portal is in relation to us–”

“–it’s north–”

“–I’ve made sure to pack plenty of rations and tools for the both of us just in case Maxwell thinks he– I’m sorry, what?” Wilson blinked, realizing she’d cut across him.

“The portal you built. It’s north from here, I remember. There should be a dirt path just to the east that will lead up up that way.” she gestured in the general direction of the pathway.

“Did you see it already?” he asked, thinking perhaps she’d passed it in her travels before she’d found him.

“Of course I have. I was there, don’t you remember?” she asked, starting off to the east. She smoothed her apron out in front of her as Wilson followed behind her. “I, uhm… didn’t mean to snap at you, then. Things got kind of jumbled and angry with the projection.” She didn’t look up at him, instead preferring to watch her feet as she walked.

“Ah, of course. You were there. Mostly. No apologies needed, miss Winnie, so long as we can get out of here, let bygones be bygones.”

“Bygones be bygones,” she repeated softly. She very much liked that idea; she’d been ghastly through that shadowy projection of herself during her time on the throne. She’d been crude and unreasonable, and she very much regretted what she remembered of it all. She was grateful that Wilson was willing to understand, especially with how she’d worked so vehemently against him the whole time.

They walked in silence after that, save for the little hums and nudges that Wilson gave her to alert her of a small patch of flowers that she could pluck from to fill her apron pockets and weave into her hair. With each new flower, she seemed to think a little bit clearer, be a little more attentive, brighter and more focused. She led them up the path, barely dismayed by how twisting and winding the trail was.

They walked for all of the cool morning, hiding beneath the shade of some particularly tall evergreen trees during the height of the day, and continuing on by the evening, hoping to reach the portal before nightfall.

Eventually the path came to an end, and Wilson recognized the tree stumps from the pines he’d felled under Maxwell’s direction. They were drawing closer; somehow, Winnie had been right, she’d brought them in exactly the right direction. As the sun began to set and Wilson prepared to set up a campfire, they broke through the thickest part of the trees that had regrown from the devastation Wilson’s axe had brought on the forest.

He felt a thrill of excitement, seeing the frame of the portal standing there, untouched, surrounded by all of the equipment that he and Maxwell had left behind. Granted, most of their food stores were probably rotten by now, but the fact remained that the camp remained intact. He rushed to the firepit, tossing in some handfuls of dry grass and pulling Winnie within the safety of the firelight just moments before the darkness fell around them.

The night settled, and Winnie was delighted to find that there was light streaming down from the overcast sky. “It’s a full moon,” she said, gaze turned towards the glow.

“All the better to work by. I just need to… figure out how to activate the portal…” he said, examining it. “Maxwell had the plans, he knew how to operate it. I didn’t think we would be operating it ourselves, when we built it…” he grumbled.

Winnie tore her gaze from the moonlight to look over at Wilson. “You thought he would be here to activate it? He never meant to leave through the portal, Wilson.” she said softly.

He hummed. “Do you think Maxwell will really let us leave, then? He built the portal, I can’t imagine he’d have gone through all that work just to destroy it again.”

Winnie shook her head. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. Maxwell didn’t build the portal as a way home. Do you remember what you said to me when we found his door in the woods? That a door is a door, and if you come in one way you must be able to go out the same way? A door isn’t always like that. Sometimes doors only work one way. And Maxwell… he didn’t build the portal to go home.”

Wilson slowed. “What - you don’t mean, he–” the pieces clicked, the smug look on Maxwell’s face as he’d taken the throne again. Wilson had been little more than Maxwell’s personal flesh and blood pawn piece, shoved around the board and discarded. He felt his cheeks flush with heat, somewhere between embarrassment and anger as Winnie looked on. “He - he used me! He said it would bring us home, back to the real world, that we’d finally be able to leave, and he - he lied!” As the words passed his lips, he realized it was hardly a surprise. Maxwell had done nothing but lie and cheat and deceive him since the moment his skeevy, smug voice had come over the radio back in his attic. It was just who he was, throned or not.

“Took you long enough to catch on, pal.”

Winnie jumped a mile at the voice behind her, leaping away to Wilson’s side, facing the shadowy apparition that leered down at the two. He was suave and rigid, one arm behind his back as he puffed on his cigar.

“Wouldn’t exactly call that an accomplishment.”

Wilson’s breath came in a trembling huff. All that work, all that hope, all that mindless misery and death, all for nothing, all for Maxwell’s personal gain. It was infuriating, and Winnie felt him tense, hands balling into fists at his side. She laid a hand at his arm, concerned as Maxwell gloated across the way.

“You did all this - the portal, the throne, all of it! For what? If we can’t go home, what could you possibly need the portal for?”

Maxwell grinned, a terrible, toothy grin that sent a chill down the survivors’ spines. “I was so hoping you would ask that,” he said, and snapped two elongated, claw-like fingers.

The portal shimmered, shuddering to life between the two sides. There was a ripple between the arch, like the shimmer of a mirage. Through the swirl of the arch, Wilson could just make out shapes moving to and fro - it was the other world, he was sure of it. Something in him ached and abandoned all deductive reasoning for the simple fact that even if he couldn’t be certain, he just knew.

Tearing away from Winnie, he dove for the portal, reaching out for the shimmering gateway, wanting nothing more than to be back, to go home, to be free of this nightmare, to be free of the forest and the fear and of Maxwell–

Wilson hit the dirt hard as he stumbled through the gate with no resistance. He looked back behind him, almost in shock, watching as the figures in the gate carried on with no indication that he’d passed clean through them.

“You really do need to learn to listen to your friend,” Maxwell mused, moseying over around the portal to where Wilson was picking himself up from the dirt. The scientist looked down to his palm, which had been split by a particularly sharp rock. “She really knows what she’s talking about, not that you’d know. I built this portal to bring you more friends, Higgsbury, you should be grateful!” he chuckled. “It’s so hard to creep into that world. Radios. Docks. It’s so cumbersome. This, I think, is an improvement. Wouldn’t you say?” he asked, admiring the bare-bones frame of the portal, watching the gears turn and the deerclops eye dart back and forth from its perch atop the portal.

Wilson hauled himself up, looking up at Maxwell with an dazed sort of expression, trying to process the news. “You’re right,” Wilson said finally. He sighed deeply, and straightened himself up, smoothing out his waistcoat. “I do need to learn to listen to Miss Winnie, when she talks of magic and all those sorts of thing I’ve always thought nonsense. So. No time like the present!” he said, turning on his heel and lunging for his machine. It was odd - it didn’t look anything like the science machines he’d built in the past, but now was the moment of truth to find out if it worked. He’d run some preliminary tests, but he hadn’t had the chance to test it like this.

His hand closed around the purple gem that made up the middle of the contraption, his blood warming it and activating the machine.

There was a pulse, and a dark flame shot out from the gem, speeding outwards as Maxwell finally turned his attention towards Wilson, surprised to find the contraption actually worked - surprised to find the shadow manipulator sending out a pulse, surprised to find his manifestation begin to disintegrate under the light that the gem emitted.

Wilson watched as Maxwell disappeared back into the shadows. The machine had never been built for him. It was meant for Winnie, to ensure that she wouldn’t appear from the throne to sabotage their work once they returned.

But this worked too.

He clutched his flayed palm, trying to stop the bleeding. “Winnie! I take it all back. Everything I’ve ever said about your magic, I take it back! You can fix the portal. You’re the only other one on this island that knows anything about magic, and you’re the only one who can get us out of here.”

Despite the warm night, Winnie felt herself break into a cold sweat.

“Are - are you - did you hit your head, Wilson, you’re not - this isn’t like you!” she trilled, nervously.

“I know it’s not, but for once, Maxwell is right. Your magic has never once failed us. It set my leg, it found the parts for the teleporter, it found me! It works! I don’t know how but it works, and it can work again!”

Winnie looked up to the sky, finding the full moon shining down on them. It was a perfect night for casting. “It… won’t work, Wilson, just like last time…” she shook her head. “The runes, they only made things worse.”

“What can be worse than this?” he asked, laughing in a mad, bewildered sort of way. He ran his good hand through his hair, clutching at his forehead for a moment. “Maxwell is going to make our lives hell here! He’s going to make our lives hell, and he’s going to make others’ lives hell. If you fix the portal, we can escape and prevent anyone else from being dragged in like we were. You have to try!”

Her breath shuddered and she clutched at the front of har apron, balling up the fabric in her fists. “But - my book–”

“You don’t need your book! You’re a bloody witch!” he exclaimed, dragging her forward, towards the portal. She stumbled to a stop, looking up at it, knowing that the sun would rise soon and magic at its peak would pass.

He released her, and she looked down to her arm, where he’d grabbed her, where he’d left a red smudge across her arm.

“Wilson…”

He waved it off. “I’ll bind it later, it doesn’t matter, I’m fine!”

“No–” she grabbed his wrist, lifting his injured palm  “The door in your attic. How did you build it?”

“A - uh… a lot like this one, actually, why?”

She gave his wrist a little shake. “Did you bind it with blood? Your own blood?”

Wilson grimaced, remembering the sharp pain in his palm as he slit it with a knife, bleeding himself into the concoction that powered the door. There was a fine white scar on the inside of his palm, now smeared with blood once again from the fresh cut. “I - yes, miss Winnie, I did.”

He recognized that look in her eyes. It was the look of a genius who had gears turning in their head. It was a look he often got, working through some problem or another in his attic, working on his inventions and theories. It was the look of brilliance, and it was a look that sent a thrill of excitement through him to see on her.

Without another word, she dragged him with her, holding his wrist in a vice grip and pressing one finger against his opened palm. He hissed in pain, not appreciating the intrusion but not daring to interrupt her as she dragged her bloodied fingers across the woodwork, drawing out the same scribbled runes that she’d added to the wooden thing in the other world.

She’d been right all along, of course. Her work was impeccable, she was a talented witch who understood the intricacies of magic better than Wilson could ever hope to. Her every rune had been correct, but they’d all been drawn in the wrong medium.

She drew in his blood, connecting the portal to the door back in his attic, and as she worked he could almost feel it, the change in atmosphere as the portal changed, giving one final burst of light as she finished the last stroke of the final rune.  

The sun began to rise, and her grip on his wrist slackened slowly, fingers trailing as she released him. The two of them stood in the dawn light for a long moment, staring at the blank white shimmer of the portal’s arch. Winnie glanced to him, then looked back to the portal, holding her breath as she reached out with her bloodied hand, and watched as it parted the shimmering surface of the arch like water.

There was a loud cheer in her ear, vaguely registered as Wilson’s voice as he shook her, staining her blouse red. Truthfully, neither was exactly mindful of what got smeared with blood, as he grabbed her arm again, pulling her forward with him, and they were both swallowed by the brightest, coolest light either of them had ever felt.

* * *

There was the sputtering of smoke and the chugging of machinery as the door opened again, the light of the portal popping and cracking into existence like fireworks, knocking several beakers from the nearby worktable in Wilson’s attic. They crashed to the floorboards, shattering in small explosions of glass that couldn’t even hope to live up to the spectacle that was taking place in front of the machine Wilson had built ages ago, that was suddenly sputtering to life in a show of sparks.

There was a final crack and twin thuds as Wilson and Winnie hit the floorboards not unlike the beakers had. They pair coughed and gasped for breath, coming to a rest in the dust that had collected on the floor in the last two years. Winnie blinked, trying to take in the unfamiliar surroundings.

There was laughter from beside her. Wilson had struggled to his feet, drops of blood pitter-pattering across the floor as he moved erratically. It felt so strange to be somewhere familiar, to be somewhere safe and comfortable and kind. It was his home, his actual home - not a tent, not a bedroll, not a cave or a particularly comfortable tree. It was his actual, real home, just as he remembered it, with the exception of a lot more shattered glass, but honestly he didn’t care if every glass piece he’d ever owned had exploded into a million glittering pieces in his absence.

“You did it! Stars and atoms, miss Winnie, you did it! We’re back, this is my attic, this is my house! I have a house! Oh, this is remarkable!” He scooped her up, leaving a bloody hand print at her back. It was joyous, and Winnie couldn’t help but grin as well. It was almost hard to believe - it had worked, her magic had gotten them home, and things could finally go back to normal. There were no more shadows, no more foraging, no more creatures that lurked in the darkness.

“Home…” she said gently, as he released her, rushing off to shut off the machine across the room. As soon as he had a proper sleep in his own bed, the first thing he was going to do was dismantle the damned thing. “I genuinely didn’t think I’d ever see it again…”

Wilson turned off the machine, watching as it collapsed into itself in the idle position, and slowed, looking back at Winnie. It hadn’t escaped him that she had nowhere to go. He knew that she was going to pursue her craft, and that she was going to be regarded with the same kind of suspicion and bitterness that had driven her from her home no matter where she went. He of all people knew that not everyone was willing to learn or come to understand the eccentrics like Winnie or himself.

He watched her as she went to the great window across the room. He’d been meaning to fix that for the longest time, but science had always gotten in the way. He’d always been very single minded, long before the Machine.

He knew he shouldn’t ask. He knew it would be rude. He squared his shoulders, watching her for a moment as she looked up at the full moon that shone outside his mangled window.

“Say, Winnie?” he asked. She hummed and turned her quiet attention towards him. “You have someplace to go, don’t you?” He knew the answer, already.

Her eyes widened, and she looked at him with an incredulous jolt. Her hands balled in the front of her apron again, smudging it with half-dried blood. “Of course! I’ve got to - get home!” she managed to beam up at him. “They’ll be missing me in Ogunquit.”

He hummed. “Right, of course.” he nodded. “S’just a shame. I’ve been, ah, meaning to hire an assistant of sorts. Daft old man like me, can barely take care of the lab. Look at this. Broken glass everywhere. I was hoping, perhaps, if Ogunquit could wait, if you’d like to… consider the position.”

She looked at him for a moment, unmoving.

Slowly, Winnie smiled.


End file.
